“I wanted to explore the use of the media by a diverse population and its association with the sleep variables,” sums up Ajar Diushekeeva, a doctoral student in research and intervention, clinical psychology option, at the University of Montreal, under the direction of Antonio Zadra (Department of Psychology) and Santiago Hidalgo (Department of Art History, Cinema and Audiovisual Media).
In her thesis, she therefore conducted a transversal and correlational study to examine the use of the media in the hour preceding the bedtime by means of an online questionnaire. The student wanted to probe adults. “In recent decades, several studies have looked into children and adolescents, but little about adults and how smart phones are used during this time interval,” she said. However, this question affects all generations.
Ajar diushekeeva will present its first results at 92e Acfas congress, which takes place until May 9.
Widespread use
Teach Diushekeeva
Crédit: Gaby Valevicius
More than 700 people recruited from university courses and by social networks therefore answered an online questionnaire on their media consultation habits before sleeping in the previous month. The questions focused on the activities and devices used (television, telephone, computer, printed, digital or audio book, Broady, music, etc.). Three sleep variables were also included: the quality, the duration of the sleep and the falling latency.
The preliminary results thus show that almost all (99 %) of the sample used at least a few times in the previous month a digital device before falling asleep. “It’s not surprising, but it’s still striking,” notes the student. The majority reported having spent more time than desired (73 %) in front of this device and a large part having done it from the bed.
-If television was still popular (for 60 % of people who answered the questionnaire), the most used device was not surprisingly the smartphone (91 %). Almost half of these users systematically consulted it before sleeping.
From the point of view of the activities themselves, social networks won the palm: 80 % of people surveyed sometimes frequented them and always a third. Short videos were particularly popular. In second position, there was the viewing of films or series (79 % sometimes, 20 % always).
Ajar Diushekeeva also noted a gender difference: women watched television more, while men played more often on game consoles or plugged into their computer.
The doctoral student, who is also interested in the effects of media content on dreams, asked two exploratory questions on this theme, but does not know if she will use this data (the second article of her doctorate on the subject will consist of a review of the literature).
Activity or device?
But is it the device (and its blue light) or the activity that influences sleep the most? “Do the consequences on sleep come from the fact that these activities move the time when we go to bed or do these activities occupy the time that should have spent sleeping?” This is what I would like to determine, ”says Ajar Diushekeeva.
Unfortunately, this type of study does not fully answer the question. Indeed, it is difficult to decide between whether the use of the media has a negative influence on sleep variables or if it is people who already have difficulty falling asleep who use them to pass the time before bedtime or try to relax. “To do this, it would take experimental studies in the laboratory or longitudinal studies,” she says.
But with such extensive use, there is something to wonder. “What we see in our study and in other recents is that adults are probably just as concerned as young people by the omnipresence of the media in their routine before sleep. It would be interesting to see if a particular habit or various uses of the media would be more strongly associated with a quality of sleep, ”raises the doctoral student.
