Global prevalence of sleep deprivation in students and heavy media use

The latest two international educational assessments found global prevalence of sleep deprivation in students, consistent with what has been reported in sleep research. However, despite the fundamental role of adequate sleep in cognitive and social functioning, this important issue has been largely overlooked by educational researchers. Drawing upon evidence from sleep research, literature on the heavy media use by children and adolescents, and data from web analytics on youth-oriented game sites and mobile analytics on youth-oriented game apps, we argue that heavy media use, particularly digital game play, may be an important contributor to sleep deprivation in students. Therefore, educational researchers, policy makers, teachers, and parents should pay greater attention to student sleep and develop programs and interventions to improve both quality and quantity of student sleep.

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