Effects of Instant Messaging on School Performance in Adolescents

Abstract

Instant messaging may compromise sleep quality and school performance in adolescents. We aimed to determine associations between nighttime messaging and daytime sleepiness, self-reported sleep parameters, and/or school performance. Students from 3 high schools in New Jersey completed anonymous questionnaires assessing sleep duration, daytime sleepiness, messaging habits, and academic performance. Of the 2,352 students sampled, 1,537 responses were contrasted among grades, sexes, and messaging duration, both before and after lights out. Students who reported longer duration of messaging after lights out were more likely to report a shorter sleep duration, higher rate of daytime sleepiness, and poorer academic performance. Messaging before lights out was not associated with higher rates of daytime sleepiness or poorer academic performance. Females reported more messaging, more daytime sleepiness, and better academic performance than males. There may be an association between text messaging and school performance in this cohort of students.

Gender, Headaches, and Sleep Health in High School Students

“…34 Indeed, Johnson and Roth reported a 2-year earlier onset of insomnia in adolescents with comorbid psychiatric disorders compared with those with insomnia alone. 21 Depression rate shifted from slightly higher in prepubescent boys to a twofold higher in girls coinciding with the onset of menarche.…”

“…Finally, another study of New Jersey adolescents showed that females practiced more instant messaging than their male schoolmates during the night and that texting after lights out contributed to impaired sleep quantity and quality relative to males. 34 In addition to unaccounted-for variables, a descriptive questionnaire study has inherent limitations. The answers were self-reported by participants and subject to comprehension of the questions.…”

“…Furthermore, none of these instruments has been agreed upon as the ''industry standard.'' [35][36][37] Our instrument has been used successfully in multiple studies 4,34,38 and is able to be administered during a homeroom period without affecting the school day. Despite the limitations of a surveybased project, we think that this study contributes to the growing literature on sleep patterns in adolescents that reveals less-than-ideal sleep durations and the problems associated with them.…”

How Adolescents Use Text Messaging Through their High School Years

“…Most recent research on text messaging involves college or young adult samples (e.g., Holtzman et al, ; Hsieh & Tseng, ; Ishii, Rife, & Kagawa, ; McEwan & Horn, ; Ouelette & Michaud, ). Almost all studies rely on survey data (e.g., Abeele et al, ; Gallimberti et al, ; Grover et al, ; Ishii et al, ; Lenhart, ; Ling, ; McEwan & Horn, ; Nesi, Widman, Choukas‐Bradley, & Prinstein, ). However, important exceptions examine small samples of text messages of college students (Eshghinejad & Moini, ; Ouelette & Michaud, ) and young adults (Aledavood et al, ), as well as one laboratory study with college students (Holtzman et al, ).…”

Gender and Sleep Health in High School Students: A Cross-Cultural Study

“…Some differences in sleep health have behavioral origins. For example, Grover et al (2016) found that female adolescents were more likely than males to engage in text messaging, both before and after lights out, and more likely to report daytime sleepiness. That said, there are also biological differences that are related to hormonal changes associated with puberty in general, and menstruation in particular (Johnson, Roth, Schultz, & Breslau, 2006), that persist into adulthood (Kische et al, 2016;Romans et al, 2015).…”