Due to the delayed release of melatonin and heightened awareness in the evening, adolescents frequently struggle to initiate sleep at a suitable time to achieve the required duration of eight to ten hours of sleep per night.
It is also during adolescence that increasing school demands, activities, greater independence from parents, and relationships with peers begin to compete with sleep. However, the role of social context is often overlooked in the study of adolescent sleep. Now, researchers in Sweden and Australia have investigated how popularity among peers affected the sleeping habits of teenagers aged 14 to 18.
“Our findings indicate that adolescents who are popular tend to have a reduced amount of sleep.” In particular, popular girls – but not boys – reported more symptoms of insomnia,” said Dr Serena Bauducco, a sleep researcher at Örebro University and the first author of the paper. Most interestingly, popularity also negatively affects sleep before and after the advent of smartphones.”
Popular and restless
Using a sample of more than 1,300 Swedish teenagers, almost half of whom were female, the researchers investigated whether popularity coincided with shorter sleep duration.
Hey asked teenagers to nominate up to three friends, and those who received the most nominations were defined as more popular. These teenagers slept less than their peers, with the most popular up to 27 minutes less.
Upon doing a separate analysis of boys and girls, the researchers discovered a positive association between popularity and symptoms of insomnia. Specifically, they observed that more popular females tended to experience a higher frequency of insomnia symptoms, including difficulties in initiating or maintaining sleep, as well as early morning awakenings. Popular ys did not experience these symptoms to the same degree.
These gender differences are not yet fully understood, but the fact that boys and girls engage in different friendship behaviours may offer insight.”Females demonstrate a greater propensity for displaying care and concern towards their friends, as well as engaging in charitable actions, compared to males.”This may mean that they carry these concerns when it’s time to sleep,” Bauducco explained.
Phones may not explain the popularity of connection.
“Furthermore, we observe a correlation between popularity and decreased sleep quality, both prior to and subsequent to the advent of handheld communication technology,” stated Bauducco. This suggests that it may not be smartphones that are causing popular teens to sleep less; instead, other mechanisms may be at play.
Researchers speculate that more friends may mean more time devoted to them, which could result in less time for sleep. The greater emotional investment could also lead to sleep difficulties. Both explanations would apply to the times before and after smartphones became commonplace. However, this needs to be investigated in detail, the researchers said.
Collecting sleep debt
“Teenagers are probably the most sleep-deprived population in their lifetime,” Bauducco said. “Previou studies show that an extra 30 minutes of sleep can lead to improved mental health and better school performance.”
With schools starting early, many teenagers try to catch up on sleep on the weekends—a strategy that can backfire. “Let’s say a teenager sleeps until 1 p.m. on Sunday. Bauducco noted that it will be challenging for him to sleep that night in order to be prepared for school the following day, as he will not feel exhausted. “Excessi ely postponing wake-up times can exacerbate the issue of sleep deficit that has accumulated throughout the week.”
The researchers believe that discussing social norms regarding sleep and peer expectations before bedtime is a missing component of existing adolescent sleep interventions. In addition, further research is needed to examine the relationship between social connectedness and sleep and shed light on the gender differences discovered.
