Another study of cell phone use in university students found that cell phone addiction could lead to an increase in sleep disturbances(4).
Finally, a nation-wide cross-sectional survey of Japanese adolescents concluded that “the use of mobile phones for calling and for sending text messages after lights out is associated with sleep disturbances among Japanese adolescents.”(5)
The mechanics of how cell phones contribute to sleep disturbances are laid out in a recent youtube video(6), explaining that people who wake up in the middle of the night are likely to stay awake longer if they have their cell phones by their bedsides – and that text message and phone call alerts can cause sleep disturbances as well.
Cutting Down On Technology Use For A Better Night’s Sleep
The conclusion to all of these studies seem obvious – don’t take your cell phone to bed with you! – it’s not necessarily as simple as it seems. Many people are attached to their phones, especially in the age of smartphones that can double as miniature computers, giving us access to games, the internet, and more.
There’s also the matter of how normalized cell phone use is. While most of us don’t think twice about taking our phones with us everywhere, the matter of how to tell when your cell phone use is becoming problematic can be complicated.
One study suggests adopting a specific structure for measuring Problematic Use of Mobile Phones, or PUMP(7) – it has been met with some success in Asia, but has yet to be adopted in the United States.
Still, the evidence does seem to consistently point towards the notion that if you use a cell phone regularly, you should be making a concerted effort to leave it behind when you go to bed.