Even ONE HOUR of social media can contribute to poor sleep in teens, according to research

( Natural News ) With social media becoming increasingly popular, various issues have since been linked to its usage. The most recent of these was uncovered by Canadian researchers: They found that spending at least 60 minutes on social media could negatively impact your sleeping patterns . The more you used Facebook, Snapchat, or WhatsApp, the higher your odds of not getting enough sleep . To arrive at this conclusion, the researchers collected data from 5,242 Canadian students participating in the Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey . Included in the data were details on how many hours the students slept each night and their duration of social media use. The researchers then compared the participants’ sleep duration to the recommended hour ranges (e.g. nine to 11 hours a night for those in the 11-to-13 age group, and eight to 10 hours a night for those in the 14-to-17 age group). Going by these standards, it was revealed that only 36.4 percent of the participants met or exceeded the recommended hours of sleep, while the remaining 63.6 percent were getting less sleep than they should. Moreover, 59.6 percent of the boys (who composed 51.4 percent of the respondents) were sleeping too little, whereas 67.9 of the girls (who made up 48.6 percent of the respondents) said the same. (Related: Consequences of sleep deprivation for teenagers .) Of the students surveyed, the researchers also noted that 73.4 percent said that they used social media for at least one hour each day. With these figures, the researchers estimated that going on social media for an hour every day placed the odds ratio of shorter sleep duration at 1.82. Hiking it up to at least five hours a day significantly raised the odds ratio to 2.98. Support our mission and protect […]

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