Though the study was relatively small and limited to a single high school, experts say the findings likely reflect the experience of American adolescents as a whole. High school students in particular are facing greater academic pressure and college competition than ever before, and all those AP classes and extracurricular activities can eat into sleep time.
“To get into a good college, it’s not enough to be an A student,” says Lisa Shives, MD, the medical director of Northshore Sleep Medicine, in Evanston, Ill. “You’ve got to play football and be captain of the chess team, too.”
Thanks to social media websites and cell phones brimming with text messages, teens’ social lives are increasingly hectic as well.
“They want to stay in the loop,” Gangwisch says. “Their peers are so important that if there’s a way to be in touch with them in the middle of the night, they want to do it.”
Parents can help their overburdened and over-connected teens get enough sleep by setting household rules and keeping an eye on computer and cell-phone use, says Ann Niles, PhD, a clinical psychologist in New York City who works with middle school students. “They’ll go in their room at a certain time, but nobody’s really monitoring them or watching how they’re settling down or relaxing,” she says.
Turning off the TV and computers after a certain hour and keeping technology—even cell phones—out of teenagers’ bedrooms may be a good start. “Any electrical stimulus in the bedroom in the middle of the night is certainly going to impair sleep,” says Lauren Hale, PhD, an assistant professor of preventive medicine at the Stony Brook University Medical Center, in Stony Brook, N.Y.
Old-school parenting is still important in the digital age, Niles says.
“Before computers it was the telephone, and before the telephone it was playing with the neighbors,” she says. “Regardless of the technology or what kids are spending their time on, we have to set limits and rules and try to ensure that kids are watching out for their own health.”
