Teens Are Losing Sleep From Texting

"A new study out of JFK Medical Center in Edison, New Jersey finds that teens and tweens are texting when they should be sleeping and it may be causing mood or learning problems. In the study, 40 kids treated at the medical center's sleep clinic were surveyed. These are kids who came to the clinic complaining of trouble falling asleep and daytime sleepiness. Researchers found those kids sent an average of 34 texts a night and woke up once a night to answer a call or a text.  Dr. Peter Polos of the JFK Medical Center said, "Unless you take the cell phone away from the child, they are really at freedom to do whatever they want, sort of, whenever they want." In addition, kids who reported texting or using the internet at night were more likely to say they suffered from anxiety, depression, a-d-h-d and learning difficulties. However this study did not say texting or surfing the web actually caused those conditions." (Teens Lose Sleep From Texting)

This is very true; I can remember countless times when I myself have been woken up on a school night by a text or call from a friend in the middle of the night. However, I do sleep with my phone on my pillow; teens that keep their phone on a night stand may be less likely to wake up due to not hearing the phone go off. This does seem to be becoming an issue, especially since it's taking away from the hours of sleep a teen needs to function. However, this is an easy fix; turn the phone on silent when you go to bed. You may still use it as an alarm and sleep with it. This easy fix will keep you from being woken up in the middle of the night again.