Insomnia Discussion

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12982-025-00912-z

Found this interesting study from where duration of social media usage and sleep were measured. The study focuses on students in the doctoral program at Aligarh Muslim University. A broad conclusion of the trial determined, "social media usage, particularly late at night, is associated with delayed sleep onset and reduced sleep duration, contributing to psychological distress, including depression, anxiety, and stress." For context, about 80% of 148 participants responded for having a healthy diet and active lifestyle, and the vast majority were ages 24-29 with a two-thirds split in favor of females. Also 93% of participants reported that they had daily activities starting at 8am in the morning, so the time at which participants went to bed was significant to duration and quality of sleep. The results from the data were:

1. 27.73% used SM for approximately 0 to 2 h (N1) before sleeping. 42.42% of the participants in the N1 group were asleep between 10:00 pm and 12:00 am, approximately 45.45% were asleep between 12:00 am and 2:00 am, and the remaining 12.13% were asleep between 2:00 am and 4:00 am."

2. The population that used SM for approximately 2 h to 4 h (N2 group). A total of 11.29% of individuals in the N2 group slept between 10:00 pm and 12:00 am, 66.12% were sleeping between 12:00 am and 2:00 am, and the remaining 22.58% were sleeping between 2:00 am and 4:00 am.

   
   

3. N3 (SM 4-6hours before bed) group represented 20.16% of the total surveyed population. None of the individuals belong to the 10:00 pm to 12:00 am sleep initiation time slot; 41.66% fall into the 12:00 am to 2:00 am slot, whereas the remaining 58.34% belong to the 2:00 am to 4:00 am sleeping time category.

Just from this quick data you see that using social media for 4-6 hours instead of the 0-2 hour group, lead to being more than 4x as likely to fall asleep during the 2-4am time. The overall trend was clear that the more hours spend on social media led to later bed times and generally less sleep based on the 93% responding 8am wake up or ealier. This actually went hand in hand with depression as well during the study which was measured using a DASS score which was designed by Lovibond and Lovibond in 1995 to measure major symptoms of depression (D), anxiety (A), and stress (S). Definitely an interesting one and maybe a sign to put down the instagram/screens a bit more and focus on being present in reality and giving your eyes and mind a bit of space.