DISRUPTED RHYTHMS: While pre-bed screen time accounts for about 14.3 percent of total daily screen time, it accounts for 44 percent of the impact on sleep
Taipei Times
Date: Apr 02, 2019
By: Lee I-chia / Staff reporter
Staring at smartphones before going to bed affects sleeping patterns, delays circadian
Members of a research team that worked on a National Health Research Institutes-led sleep study pose for photographers in an undated photograph.Photo provided by the National Health Research Institutes
rhythms and reduces the total sleep time, a study by the National Health Research Institutes (NHRI) found.
On average, every hour of smartphone screen time throughout the day will delay bedtime by 4.9 minutes and reduce the total sleep time by 5.5 minutes, and that screen time right before bed affects sleeping patterns the most, Lin Yu-hsuan (林煜軒), a physician at the Institute of Population Health Sciences, who headed the research team, said yesterday.
The 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded for the discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling circadian rhythms, which pointed out that irregular sleep patterns might increase the risk of psychiatric and physical illnesses, Lin said.
The team, which included researchers from the NHRI, National Taiwan University Hospital, Mackay Memorial Hospital, Chiao Tung University and Dan Jiang University, developed an app, called “Rhythm,” that continuously and automatically records the user’s daily smartphone usage and sleep patterns in an objective setting and over a long period. [FULL STORY]
