Is screen time associated with later bedtimes and daytime sleepiness in adolescents?
A recent report from HBSC Healthy Generation points to increasingly late bedtimes as a key reason why Czech adolescents are getting less sleep today, and why a growing number of them are falling short of sleep recommendations. This lack of sleep is the main cause of daytime sleepiness. Research consistently links daytime sleepiness to a range of negative effects, including worsened school grades, mental health struggles, and a lower quality of life. In our newly published study, we explored how bedtimes and daytime sleepiness are associated with the amount of time spent on screens during the day. We were also interested in whether avoiding screens for an hour before bed makes a difference. We found an association between screen time and sleep. However, the study provided no evidence that the popular sleep recommendation to avoid screens an hour before sleep is effective in the long term.
