Quite often, the first piece of advice we receive when trying to change our sleeping habits and to get a better night’s sleep is to put our phone (and all other types of screens and technology) away. Experts recommend that adolescents get at least 8-10 hours of sleep a night, and to ensure staying asleep, to avoid screen time at least 30 minutes to 1 hour before you plan to call it a night.
There are plenty of reasons to explain why we should avoid your phone, computer, tablets, and TVs before bed: the bright light keeps us alert and makes us less tired (but more tired in the morning), REM sleep (where memories are processed and has ties to problem-solving skills) is decreased, and of course, using screens delays sleep as a whole because we’re engaging with content in some way.
But like all habits, telling your child to distance themselves from their phone before bed is easier said than done. For a generation of youths that communicate online as much as, if not more, communicating face-to-face, putting phones away, along with the conversations, social media platforms, and friends that come with it, can be nerve wracking.
Because technology and social media is so crucial to how many youths communicate today, it’s easy to feel like anything could happen and that you can miss something important without your phone for just a few seconds, an hour before sleeping, and even longer than that. Not having their phone charging next to you means that they might miss a conversation in a group chat, an email, or even a notification about something you don’t care about at all. The excitement of social media, regardless of what the content is, and just the fact that there is always content to see, makes people want to stay on and makes them afraid that they’ll miss something important, even if it’s most likely not.
If you want your child to try to get a better night’s sleep but are having a hard time parting from their phone to do so, remind them that all that content will also be there in the morning. Most of the time, there isn’t anything groundbreaking that requires us to stay up expecting an alert at 1AM. Putting their phone away right before bed can also be the first step to take if you want them to distance yourself from how much they use and rely on social media as a whole.
Do you know if your child hastrouble sleeping at night? Where do you keep your phone when you’re getting ready for bed? Have you ever considered keeping your phone away before bed? How would you address this with your child?