Bedtime social media use, sleep, and affective wellbeing in young adults: an experience sampling study

Duration: 5 mins Publication Date: 8 Oct 2020 Next Review Date: 8 Oct 2023 DOI: 10.13056/acamh.13497

Description

Ahuti Das‐Friebel discusses her JCPP paper ‘Bedtime social media use, sleep, and affective wellbeing in young adults: an experience sampling study’. This is part of the September 2020 Special Issue ‘Waking Up to the Importance of Sleep for Child & Adolescent Mental Health & Disorders’. Findings from primarily cross-sectional studies have linked more extensive social media use to poorer sleep and affective wellbeing among adolescents and young adults. This study examined bedtime social media use, sleep, and affective wellbeing, using an experience sampling methodology with the aim of establishing a day-to-day temporal link between the variables. The study hypothesized a positive association between increased bedtime social media use and lower affective wellbeing the following day, mediated by poorer sleep.

Learning Objectives

1. Explore whether increased social media use at night before sleep associated with poorer sleep afterwards.
2. Examine if poor sleep mediates the relationship between social media use the previous night and affective wellbeing the following day.
3. Investigate whether associations of bedtime social media use and sleep with affective wellbeing the following day are stronger for positive and negative affect reported in the morning versus the afternoon.