Parents can pass on many blessings to their children, one of which is good sleep habits. Too little sleep can have significant health implications for youngsters, affecting how they think, process information, make sound moral judgments, and reason. The general status of healthful well-being also can be affected by too little sleep, as can academic performance and much more. Let’s explore some of the issues, with particular emphasis on how electronic media affect our children’s sleep and what parents can do to limit this impact.
Media Use
You don’t have to look far to observe children and adults alike using some form of electronic media. Note your family members as they carry their cell phones to the dinner table or spend long hours on the computer and with handheld games. Walk down the street and watch the myriad of people texting or talking on their cell phones. Even during church services it’s common to see some in the congregation “talking” to friends and family via texting. Today we can even surf the Internet and watch sporting events or movies using a smartphone.
A Kaiser Family Foundation report explains it this way: “Today, 8- [to] 18-year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes to using entertainment media across a typical day (more than 53 hours a week). And because they spend so much of that time ‘media multitasking’ (using more than one medium at a time), they actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes worth of media content into those 7½ hours.”1 That’s more time than they spend in school and church combined.
The Pew Internet and American Life Project reports that “daily text messaging among American teens has shot up in the past 18 months, from 38 percent of teens texting friends daily in February 2008 to 54 percent of teens texting daily in September 2009. And it’s not just frequency—teens are sending enormous quantities of text messages a day. Half of teens send 50 or more text messages a day, or 1,500 texts a month, and one in three sends more than 100 texts a day, or more than 3,000 texts a month.”2 It would seem logical that this dramatic increase in media use would deprive our youth of much-needed sleep, and that they would experience all the consequences.
Effects of Sleep Deprivation
A lack of sleep affects the brain’s ability to plan, organize activities, and pay attention. Adequate sleep is important in the regulation of metabolism. Sleep loss also may have an adverse effect on our immune and endocrine systems, as well as contribute to serious illnesses such as obesity, diabetes, and hypertension.3 A study looking at sleep duration in 1,138 6-year-old children found that fewer than 10 hours of sleep per night on a regular basis increases the risk of obesity by almost 420 percent.4
When the amount of sleep for a youngster is reduced, there may be academic consequences. A report from a study conducted in Rhode Island showed that “students who described themselves as struggling in school (C’s, D’s, and F’s) reported that on school nights they obtain about 25 minutes less sleep and go to bed an average of 40 minutes later than A and B students.”5 A research report of kindergarten through fourth-grade children and their teachers found that about 10 percent of the kids were falling asleep in school.6
Because lack of sleep affects judgment, it has implications for substance abuse as well. One such study conducted by researchers at the University of California at Davis reports that the lack of sleep in conjunction with social pressures from friends leads to an increased chance of marijuana use.7 Another study reported that childhood overtiredness was associated with alcohol use outcomes and alcohol-related problems in young adults.8
The data on the presence of media in kids’ bedrooms are striking. From a Kaiser Family Foundation report in 2003 we learn that new interactive digital media have become an integral part of children’s lives. Even the youngest children—those under the age of 2—are widely exposed to electronic media. Forty-three percent of those under 2 watch TV every day, and 26 percent have a TV in their bedroom.9
Media Impacts Sleep
Because good sleep is promoted by physical activity and electronic media use may displace physical activity, it’s plausible that media use may relate to sleep deprivation at some level. Another link between media and sleep may be explained by the fact that exposure to light during media use suppresses melatonin excretion (sometimes referred to as a sleep hormone), which delays sleep onset.10
Sleep disturbances have been linked to the presence of a television in the child’s bedroom11 and to computer game play.12 Mobile telephones affected a quarter of the youngest to almost half of the oldest children in the sample. The threat to healthful sleep patterns because of sleep interruptions due to text messaging is potentially more important than the threat posed by entertainment media. The latter mainly appear to influence time to bed, while the presence of mobile phones actually seems to lead to interrupted sleep.13 Another researcher drew these conclusions: “The television-viewing habits associated most significantly with sleep disturbance were increased daily television viewing amounts and increased television viewing at bedtime, especially in the context of having a television set in the child’s bedroom.”14
We are needful of restful and restorative sleep, yet we allow our “toys” of media connectivity to keep us awake and glued to the glowing screens of information and entertainment. Many of us drop into bed worn out with the cares of our lives and media-watching but are unable to sleep because the thoughts continue to race on, stimulated and stressed by the sights and scenes they have been beholding—and we’re teaching our children to do the same.
What Does the Bible Say?
King Solomon found that the reason for “people getting no sleep day or night” (Eccl. 8:16) is because they are actually searching for meaning and safety. Children might try to find them through prolonging playtime, young people through staying connected with peers, adults through balancing work with entertainment. Once they acquire a biblical worldview, however, and reach the wise conviction that the Sovereign of the universe is actually on their side, all family members’ lifestyles, including the patterns and quality of their sleep time, will change.
Jesus bade His disciples to “come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). Solomon confirms that a living relationship with God results in peaceful sleep: “For he grants sleep to those he loves” (Ps. 127:2).
We also do well to remember the Sabbath rest and the regeneration it brings physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Jesus graciously encouraged the disciples, and us today, to restore the balance of life, which is pressed and punctuated by so much activity and the facilities of the media, in these words: “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest” (Mark 6:31). The invitation is to go with Him to a place of quietness, leaving the distractions behind; this is truly the formula that leads to peace beyond understanding and sweet, refreshing sleep amid the frenzy of the activities of daily living.
Related Resource: A Few Practical Tips
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1Kaiser Family Foundation, “Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds,” accessed Mar. 5, 2011, and available at http://kff.org/entmedia/mh012010pkg.cfm.
2The Pew Internet and American Life Project, “Teens and Mobile Phones,” accessed Mar. 5, 2011, and available at www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Teens-and-Mobile-Phones.aspx.
3National Sleep Foundation, “Sleep-Wake Cycle: Its Physiology and Impact on Health,” accessed Mar. 5, 2011, and available at www.nationwidemedical.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/SleepWakeCycle.pdf.
4Évelyne Touchette, Dominique Petit, Richard E. Tremblay, Michel Boivin, Bruno Falissard, Christophe Genolini, Jacques Y. Montplaisir, “Associations Between Sleep Duration Patterns and Overweight/Obesity at Age 6,” Sleep 31, no. 11 (November 2008): 1507-1514.
5Amy R. Wolfson and Mary A. Carskadon, “Sleep Schedules and Daytime Functioning in Adolescents,” Child Development 69, no. 4 (August 1998): 875-887.
6Judith A. Owens, Anthony Spirato, Melissa McGuinn and Chantelle Nobile, “Sleep Habits and Sleep Disturbance in Elementary School-aged Children,” Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics 21, no. 1 (2000): 26, 27.
7The California Aggie, “Lack of Sleep Connected With Higher Teen Marijuana Use,” accessed Mar. 5, 2011, and available at http://theaggie.org/article/2010/?04/06/lack-of-sleep-connected-with-higher-teen-?marijuana-use.
8Maria M. Wong, Kirk J. Brower, Joel T. Nigg, and Robert A. Zucker, “Childhood Sleep problems, response inhibition, and Alcohol and Drug outcomes in Adolescence and young Adulthood,” Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research 34, no. 6 (June 2010): 1033-1044.
9Kaiser Family Foundation, “New Study Finds Children Age 0 to 6 Spend as Much Time With TV, Computers, and Video Games as Playing Outside,” accessed Mar. 5, 2011, and available at www.kff.org/entmedia/entmedia102803nr.cfm.
10 Kaiser Family Foundation, “Children’s Media Use and Sleep Problems: Issues and Unanswered Questions,” accessed Mar. 6, 2011, and available at www.kff.org/entmedia/upload/7674.pdf.
11 Judith Owens, Rolanda Maxim, Melissa McGuinn, Chantelle Nobile, Michael Msall, and Anthony Alario, “Television-viewing Habits and Sleep Disturbance in School Children,” Pediatrics 104, no. 3 (September 1999), accessed Mar. 6, 2011, and available at http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/?104/3/e27.
12 Yusaku Tazawa and Kyoji Okada, “Physical Signs Associated With Excessive Television-Game playing and Sleep Deprivation,” Pediatrics International 43, no. 6 (December 2001): 647–650.
13 Jan Van den Bulck, “Text Messaging as a Cause of Sleep interruption in Adolescents, Evidence From a Cross-sectional Study,” Journal of Sleep Research 12, no. 3 (September 2003), accessed Mar. 6, 2011, and available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-?2869.2003.00362.x/full.
14 Judith Owens, Rolanda Maxim, Melissa McGuinn, Chantelle Nobile, Michael Msall, and Anthony Alario, “Television-viewing Habits and Sleep Disturbance in School Children,” Pediatrics 104, no. 3 (September 1999), accessed Mar. 6, 2011, and available at http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/104/3/e27.
15 St. Luke’s Hospital, “Children’s Sleep Requirements, accessed Mar. 5, 2011, and available at www.stlukes-stl.com/services/sleep_medicine/documents/ pediatricsleep/children_sleep_reqmt.pdf.
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Duane McBride, Ph.D., is professor and chair of the department of behavioral science, and executive director of the institute for prevention of addictions at Andrews University; Gary L. Hopkins, M.D., Dr., P.H., is an associate director of the General Conference Health Ministries Department, and research professor for the department of Behavioral Science at Andrews University; Peter N. Landless,, M.D., a board-certified nuclear cardiologist, is an associate director of the General Conference Health Ministries department; Romulus Chelbegean, Ph.D., M.F.T., C.F.L.E., is an assistant professor and director of the family studies program in the behavioral sciences department at Andrews University; and Alina Baltazar, M.S.W., L.M.S.W., C.F.L.E., is an adjunct instructor in the behavioral sciences department at Andrews University, and has a clinical practice in the community. This article was published October 27, 2011.
