Spending Time Social Media At Night Can Trigger Insomnia

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JAKARTA - A psychiatrist team from Duke University and Yale University has discovered a causal relationship between the use of social media at night and sleep delays. In a study reported in the journal Sleep Medicine, reported Medical Express, Friday (26/5), the research team tracked down the use of social media which turned out to have delayed sleep patterns on 44,000 Reddit users. Previous research showed that exposure to blue rays, as emitted from cell phones and tablet computers, could cause sleep problems due to disrupting melatonin production.

In this new effort, researchers have found that uploading comments or content to social media sites before normal sleep can delay people's sleep time. The team wondered if social media posts might interfere with people's normal sleep patterns, especially at night. To find out, they conducted an in-depth analysis of data on social media sites Reddit. Like other social media sites, Reddit users can upload comments, links, or content and comment on what others have uploaded.

Overall, the research team analyzed 120 million posts made by 44,000 users on the site over 15 years. They can establish what they describe as normal sleep time for active users of the site, which allows them to measure the impact of social media uploads before normal sleep time.

The research team found that if users upload to the site about an hour before their normal sleep time, they are more likely to stay awake from one to three hours after they usually go to bed. And if they upload several times before their normal sleep time, they stay awake even longer.

Researchers argue that the increase in dopamine levels due to the anticipation of responses from other users on the site could make it difficult for content uploaders to relax and sleep. Previous research has shown that increased dopamine levels contribute to mental activity and vigilance, both of which are not conducive to sleep.