Web Log: Not so tweet dreams for social media users

All that time spent on Snapchat, Tumblr and Twitter may be the reason you’re not sleeping well. According to a study from the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Health Sciences, young adults who are classified as heavy users of social media were far more likely to experience sleep disturbances that their peers.

More than 1,700 US adults aged between 19 and 32 were questioned and, on average, they used social media for an hour a day, visiting these sites at least 30 times per week, which is a significant baseline as it stands. It would be interesting to calculate how much time the Irish spend on these sites. Correlation, however, is not causation: the researchers said it could be that overuse of social media leads to sleep disturbance, or perhaps those who find it hard to sleep turn to Instagram et al as a distraction from their insomnia, or maybe even both are true.

http://www.upmc.com/media/NewsReleases/2016/Pages/levenson-primack-smsleep.aspx