According to research conducted on over 45,000 young people, an hour of use of the phone is enough to reduce the quality of sleep and increase the risk of insomnia by 60%
According to a recent research published in the magazine Frontiers in PsychiatryEnough An hour of exposure to the screens in bed to increase The risk of suffering from insomnia by 59%. The study, conducted in Norway, questioned those apparently harmless habits like watching a series on Netflix, scrolling videos on Tiktok or playing with the smartphone before sleeping. Yet these activities – which many consider moments of evening relaxation – could actually compromise the quality of sleep, also reducing their average duration of about 24 minutes.
The investigation involved beyond 45,000 Norwegian students between 18 and 28 years oldobserving their evening digital habits. The results are clear: any use of the screens once in bed – from social media to podcasts, from video games to online reading – is associated with a lower sleep quality.
And they don’t even save those who use the blue anti-light filter: It is precisely the presence of the screen that maintains the brain in a alerteven with the minimum brightness or active “night mode”. This happens because of a phenomenon called “Temporal dislocation”: Every minute spent watching the screen is a minute stolen from rest. To this is added a harmful mix of Notifications, artificial light and cognitive stimuliwhich slow down the falling asleep and worsen the quality of sleep.
No exception
There are no exceptions: Even reading an article or watching a relaxing video is enough to keep the brain awake. Although you have the impression of relaxing, in reality the mind remains active, ready to react to continuous stimuli. As a result, the body struggles to start the physiological processes related to sleep.
The researcher responsible for the study, Gunnhild Johnsen Hjetland of Norwegian Institute of Public Healthrecommends a solution as simple as it is effective: stop any activity on the screens at least 30-60 minutes before bedtime. A change that requires willpower and, perhaps, also an analog clock in order not to use the mobile phone as a clock on the bedside table anymore.
