‘Don’t let children take phones to bed’

Study links social media use to sleep problems

PARENTS have been told to ban children from taking phones to bed after a study linked social media use to problems with sleep and mental health.

The research claimed that teenagers who frequently used social media were around 40% more likely to experience mental health problems.

It said children who regularly log-in to social media get less sleep, less exercise and risk exposing themselves to harmful content or bullying.

The researchers said that although social media use in itself was not directly harmful, these knock-on effects led to ‘psychological distress’.

As a result, they urged parents to consider banning their children from taking phones to bed, restricting social media use for an hour before sleep and monitor who they talk to online.

The study, by University College London’s Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, was based on data from 10,000 English children aged 13 to 16. Researchers followed the children over three years and recorded their use of all popular social media sites including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp and Snapchat.

Victoria Hewson, of the UK’s Institute of Economic Affairs, said: ‘Children being exposed to unsuitable content online is concerning, but nationalising parenthood with disproportionate regulations that will infringe all of our rights to free speech and interests in a vibrant, open internet is not the way to combat it.’

The study, published in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health journal, found that a lack of sleep, online bullying and reduced exercise explained almost all of increased mental health issues in girls who frequently used social media. The factors were much less significant for boys.

Researchers compared children’s response to a questionnaire about their mental wellbeing with the results of a questionnaire about how frequently they checked social media.

They also found a rapid increase in social media use over the three-year period. In the first year, 43% of girls and boys used social media more than three times a day, rising to 69% in the third.

Co-author of the study, Dr Dasha Nicholls, said: ‘In cyberbullying, even your bed is not a safe place, and if your phone is downstairs, you can’t be bullied in your bed.

‘Rather than endlessly saying, “can you get off your phone?”, say you need to leave your phone downstairs when you go to bed, make sure that you go out and get some exercise.’

‘Even your bed is not a safe place’