The relationship between social media use and sleep quality among undergraduate students

Abstract

Insufficient sleep is a growing health problem among University students, especially for freshmen during their first quarter/semester of college. Little research has studied how social media technologies impact sleep quality among college students. This study aims to determine the relationship between social media use and sleep quality among freshman undergraduates during their first quarter in college. Specifically, we explored whether variations in Twitter use across the time of day and day of the week would be associated with self-reported sleep quality. We conducted a study of Freshman Twitter-using students (N = 197) over their first quarter of college, between October to December of 2015. We collected students' tweets, labeled the content of the tweets according to different emotional states, and gave theme weekly surveys on sleep quality. Tweeting more frequently on weekday late nights was associated with lower sleep quality (β = -0.937, SE = 0.352); tweeting more frequently on weekday evenings was associated with better quality sleep (β = 0.189, SE = 0.097). Tweets during the weekday that were labeled related to the emotion of fear were associated with lower sleep quality (β = -0.302, SE = 0.131). Results suggest that social media use is associated with sleep quality among students. Results provide can be used to inform future interventions to improve sleep quality among college students.

Social Media Use, Social Media Stress, and Sleep: Examining Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Relationships in Adolescents

“…Previous research has found support for an adverse relationship between SM use and sleep (Levenson et al, 2016), as well as between SM stress and sleep (e.g., Garett et al, 2016;Xanidis & Brignell, 2016). Surprisingly, these studies specifically focused on emerging adults, while adolescents are the main users of SM (Lenhart et al, 2010).…”

“…Up to now, studies that directly examined the relationship between SM use and sleep have yielded mixed results (e.g., Garett, Liu, & Young, 2016;Levenson, Shensa, Sidani, Colditz, & Primack, 2016;Xu et al, 2016). Whereas one study showed that SM frequency was related to more sleep disturbances, including more difficulty falling asleep and lower sleep quality (Levenson et al, 2016), other studies showed limited or no support for a negative relationship between SM use and sleep (Garett et al, 2016;Tavernier & Willoughby, 2014;Xu et al, 2016).…”

“…More specifically, it has been argued that some adolescents experience high levels of stress from using SM (Beyens, Frison, & Eggermont, 2016). To date, only few studies have specifically focused on the relationship between SM stress and adolescent sleep (e.g., Garett et al, 2016;Xanidis & Brignell, 2016), and no studies have aimed to disentangle the effect of SM use from SM stress. Studies on SM stress focused either on SM dependency or SM-related anxiety.…”

“…Whereas one study showed that SM frequency was related to more sleep disturbances, including more difficulty falling asleep and lower sleep quality (Levenson et al, 2016), other studies showed limited or no support for a negative relationship between SM use and sleep (Garett et al, 2016;Tavernier & Willoughby, 2014;Xu et al, 2016).…”

“…For example, three studies among emerging adults showed that SM dependency was related to lower sleep quality (Wolniczak et al, 2013;Xanidis & Brignell, 2016) and delayed bed and rising times (Andreassen, Torsheim, Brunborg, & Pallesen, 2012). In addition, Garett et al (2016) demonstrated that sending tweets that evoked fear (i.e., SM-related anxiety) was associated with lower sleep quality. Overall, these studies indicate that SM stress is adversely associated with multiple sleep variables.…”