A four-year-old will say "Can I take the tablet to bed, play for a while and fall asleep?" A nine-year-old boy will tell you "Go roll what you see, I'm going to my room to watch TV". A thirteen-year-old 'boy' will tell you "I'm going to bed, I'm talking to my friends about WhattsApp".
Depending on the ages, they will prefer to use one or the other screens and depending on the age, they will ask or do so directly. But in all three examples there is a problem: the three children are more likely to sleep less and worse than children who go to bed without television, without a tablet and without a mobile phone.
At least that is what a study says in which it was tried to know what was the effect of small screens on children's sleep. Television is already known to help children fall asleep later, as they watch it, but there was a need to know what was happening with mobiles and in a study conducted in the US with 2,048 children between 9 and 13 years of age evaluated the use of screens with the quantity and quality of sleep.
They saw that Children who slept near a cell phone or tablet lost 20.6 minutes of sleep and they had more risk of feeling tired the next day (the perception of not having rested enough). If they slept with TV, they lost 18 minutes of sleep.
If we think of a single day, 18 or 20 minutes is not really much, but if we multiply it by 7 days a week we have two hours lost of sleep because we are with "the little screen". If you add to this that the next day you feel more tired, the mess may be important.
Jennifer Falbe, author of the study, explains the conclusions:
Despite the importance of sleep for children's health, development and performance in school, many do not get enough sleep. We found that both sleeping near a small screen and sleeping in a room with a television were related to a shorter duration of sleep on weekdays ... Children who slept near a small screen, compared to those who were not, were also more likely to feel as if they didn't get enough sleep.
What to do then? Well, apply common sense, if there is one. Both children and adults tend to sleep worse if in the last moments before sleeping they are in front of a screen. And if the phone stays next to you, with the notifications activated, I don't even tell you: "let's see if they've answered me", "let's see if someone has given 'Like'", etc. Not only do you fall asleep later, but you wake up at night to see if there is any message to answer. And if there is, many answer! Of course, the one who answers, and on the other side, the other, who receives it. And so they do not sleep what to sleep or how to sleep.
No TV in the room, nothing mobile in the room and nothing from tablet. You read a little while and sleep. Or talk for a little while with mom or dad, or with the brother. Or the light goes out and you fall asleep with your thoughts, as it has always been done for ever and ever.
