According to a study from the Arizona State University Department of Psychology, media use in the hour preceding bedtime impacts how kids sleep, especially children who struggle to self-regulate their behavior. Frequent media use before bed in these children predicted later bedtimes and less sleep. The work is now available online in Psychological Science.
The research team spent a week following 547 children, aged 7-9 years. The participant group was socioeconomically diverse and lived in rural and urban areas. The parents kept daily diaries that tracked the children’s media use and sleep patterns.
