Social Media Affecting Sleep???

Monday, January 18, 2010, 16:40

A new study reveals that the amount of time spent on Facebook or other social media doesn"t affect how much sleep college students get each night.

The research led by University of Hampshire shows no correlation between the time spend on social networking and amount of sleep.

“The study indicates that surfing social media is barely keeps students up at night," said professor Chuck Martin.

During the study, researchers defined light users of social media as those who use social media for 31 or fewer minutes. Heavy usage was defined as usage exceeding 60 minutes. Light sleepers were defined as those who sleep seven hours or fewer.

Students who were heavy sleepers were defined as those sleeping nine or more hours. Social networks taken as tools in the research were defined as Facebook, YouTube, blogs, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn.

They found that of heavy users of social media, 60 percent get a light amount of sleep per night. Of light users of social media, 60 percent also get a light amount of sleep per night.

Slightly more than one out of 10 (12 percent) of both heavy and light users of social media sleep nine or more hours per night.