Center on Media and Child Health

Sleep Quality Declines: Is Media a Culprit?

If you're reading this post in the morning, you may be yawning as you try to down some coffee and wake yourself up from the precious few hours of sleep you got last night.  So, you won't be surprised to learn that sleep quality and quantity is declining for adults; but did you know it is also declining for children?  A recent study showed that kids in 2005 slept at least 2 hours less each night than kids in 1981. 

There are many plausible and interesting ideas for how media use may be related to this decline, including:

• Since electronics are cheaper to purchase, many kids have media in their bedrooms, providing opportunities for displacing sleep with media
• DVDs and DVRs make media available on-demand when people have free time, usually late at night
• Media has become more exciting, more violent, and more sexualized, making it harder to fall asleep after watching

Though research on how media may affect sleep is scant, a new research brief from the Kaiser Family Foundation highlights what is known about media and sleep in different developmental stages, different forms of media, and different modes of viewing. 

>> See research on media and sleep from the CMCH Database of Research

3 Media Articles in November Pediatrics

There are 3 media-related articles in the new issue of Pediatrics:

Zimmerman and Christakis:  Associations Between Content Types of Early Media Exposure and Subsequent Attentional Problems

• See news article
• Conclusion:  "Preschool boys exposed to violent television -- even cartoons -- are more likely to become aggressive later in life."

Christakis and Zimmerman:  Violent Television Viewing During Preschool Is Associated With Antisocial Behavior During School Age

• See news article
• Conclusion:  "Every hour per day that kids under 3 watched violent child-oriented entertainment their risk doubled for attention problems five years later." 

Dworak et al: Impact of Singular Excessive Computer Game and Television Exposure on Sleep Patterns and Memory Performance of School-aged Children

• Conclusion:  "The results suggest that television and computer game exposure affect children's sleep and deteriorate verbal cognitive performance, which supports the hypothesis of the negative influence of media consumption on children's sleep, learning, and memory."