The Effects on Kids of Being Addicted to Nighttime Cellphone Use
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The Effects on Kids of Being Addicted to Nighttime Cellphone Use
Jim Windell
With a new school just beginning, there has been plenty of discussion about whether kids should be allowed to have cellphones in school and in their classrooms. Some schools have taken the step of prohibiting students from having access to their cell phones during the school day.
In addition to the question about whether cellphones in school is good or bad, there has also been discussion about whether – and how – parents can limit cellphone use during non-academic hours.
Should limits be placed on how much cellphone time teens have? Is there anything wrong with unlimited cellphone use for adolescents?
A recently published article examines the question of what cellphone use is doing to teenagers. Spoiler alert: The outcome of the study isn’t pretty.
Australian researchers from the Behaviour-Brain-Body Research Centre at the University of South Australia polled more than 50,000 primary and secondary school students ages seven to 19 years. The central question was about the link between their sleep and nighttime phone habits, their experience of cyberbullying, and their stress levels. For the purposes of the study, “nighttime” referred to phone use when young people were supposed to be sleeping, not prior to bed.
The researchers found that across all genders and age groups, phone use during nighttime hours not only robbed youth of sleep, but it also had a negative impact on their mental health, especially among those who had been cyberbullied.
Among the girls, 17% said they slept less than eight hours a night and the corresponding figure for the teenage boys was 13%. More than one third of primary school children and over 60% of teenagers in the study reported using their phone at night when they were supposed to be sleeping. Of the children who experienced cyberbullying, almost 75% admitted they checked their phone throughout the night, compared to less than half for those who had never been cyberbullied.
Approximately 66% of teenage girls and 58% of teenage boys (aged 12-19 years) reported being cyberbullied at least once in the preceding school term.
Approximately 15% of children in the study reported being cyberbullied, with a higher frequency of boys in primary school and girls in secondary school.
Stress levels in the moderate-to-severe range were reported by 38% of teenage girls and 23% of teenage boys.
While cyberbullying and lack of sleep were not as common in primary aged children (7-11 years), one in five reported moderate-to-severe stress.
Dr. Stephanie Centofanti, a University of South Australia researcher and co-author of the study, says that girls are particularly vulnerable because their smartphone use at night is higher than other age groups and they start using social media at a younger age. “We found that frequency of nighttime phone use and getting less than eight hours sleep a night not only peaked in early adolescence but was also more evident in young girls,” she says.
Centofanti also noted that pre-teens are at higher risk for socio-emotional disorders because they are at a developmental stage where they are less prepared cognitively, behaviorally and neurobiologically. And she and her colleagues found that outside of the digital environment, boys are more likely to be physically bullied, while girls normally resort to psychological or relational bullying, which is more easily enabled online.
Whether nighttime cellphone use causes cyberbullying and stress or whether cyberbullying and stress leads to using cellphones when they should be sleeping is not entirely clear from this study. But the study published in Adolescence does send a clear signal to parents about the need to manage digital device use at home.
“It is clear that parents need to pay closer attention to managing smartphone use at night, particularly if their children are more vulnerable to cyberbullying, and to ensure their children get enough sleep,” concludes Dr. Centofanti.
To read the study, find it with this reference:
Centofanti, S., Lushington, K., Wicking, A., Wicking, P., & Dorrian, J. (2024). Nighttime Phone Use and Past Exposure to Cyberbullying and Their Impact on Sleep and Psychological Wellbeing in Australian Children Aged 7 to 19 Years. Adolescents, 4(3), 355-374.