Media Use and Sleep in Teenagers: What Do We Know?

Purpose of Review: The screen-based media landscape has changed markedly during the last decade, with 95% of American teens owning or having access to a smartphone. Coinciding with the rise in digital media devices, researchers have noted a high prevalence of insufficient sleep among youth. In this article, we review recent literature about adolescents’ screen use behaviors and sleep health outcomes published between 2015 and 2019. Recent Findings: Overall, we found a high level of screen use and poor sleep health (i.e., short duration, poor quality, late timing) among adolescents. The great majority of recent observational studies demonstrated a robust inverse association between screen media device use and sleep outcomes among adolescents all over the world. Screen-based media use has also been linked to a series of adverse psychosocial and behavioral outcomes, partially if not fully mediated through impaired sleep health. Experimental data, however, offer mixed findings on the causal relationship between teen media use and sleep. In addition, there is uncertainty as to the relative roles of the proposed mechanisms underlying those relationships, whether driven by the light emitted by devices, time displacement, or the media content affecting psychological state (e.g., fear of missing out, anxiety). Summary: Current empirical research demonstrates that screen-based digital media use is closely associated with sleep duration and sleep quality among teens; however, limited data show a direct causal effect of screen-based media use on adolescent sleep health. With very few studies demonstrating easy-to-implement and effective interventions, we argue that more basic, translational, and clinical research is necessary.