It’s one of the most pervasive messages about technology and sleep. We’re told bright, blue light from screens prevents us falling asleep easily. We’re told to avoid scrolling on our phones before bedtime or while in bed .
We’re sold glasses to help filter out blue light. We put our phones on “night mode” to minimise exposure to blue light. But what does the science actually tell us about the impact of bright, blue light and sleep? When our group of sleep experts from Sweden, Australia and Israel compared scientific studies that directly tested this, we found the overall impact was close to meaningless.
Sleep was disrupted, on average, by less than three minutes. We showed the message that blue light from screens stops you from falling asleep is essentially a myth, albeit a very convincing one. Instead, we found a more nuanced picture about technology and sleep.
What we did We gathered evidence from 73 independent studies with a total of 113,370 participants of all ages examining various factors that connect technology use and sleep. We did indeed find a link between technology use and sleep, but not necessarily what you’d think. We found that sometimes technology use can lead to poor sleep and sometimes poor sleep can lead to more technology use.
In other words, the relationship between technology and sleep is complex and can go both ways. How is technology supposed to harm sleep? Technology is proposed to harm our sleep in a number of ways. But here’s what w.