Do text messages impact adolescents’ sleep? A Narrative Review

Abstract

New technologies, such as cell phones, are now a fundamental part of daily life and have become an essential tool in the social lives of all individuals. Adolescent sleep has been explored through various conceptual and empirical models and the most recent research shows that electronic media use has a significant role in sleep, especially during adolescence. This paper reviews the current knowledge of the impact of adolescents’ text messaging habits and their sleep health. A narrative review of the literature on the impact of texting habits on adolescents' sleep was performed. Empirical evidence concerning adolescents' sleep confirms the relevance of texting habits in developing and maintaining sleep disturbances. In particular, increased time spent texting after getting into bed is associated with insufficient sleep, insomnia, and irregular sleep patterns, such as social jetlag, tiredness in school, difficulties in both waking up and falling asleep, and differences between weeknights and weekends.