TY - JOUR

T1 - Nighttime smartphone use and changes in mental health and wellbeing among young adults

T2 - a longitudinal study based on high-resolution tracking data

AU - Dissing, Agnete Skovlund

AU - Andersen, Thea Otte

AU - Jensen, Andreas Kryger

AU - Lund, Rikke

AU - Rod, Naja Hulvej

N1 - © 2022. The Author(s).

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - Frequent nighttime smartphone use can disturb healthy sleep patterns and may adversely affect mental health and wellbeing. This study aims at investigating whether nighttime smartphone use increases the risk of poor mental health, i.e. loneliness, depressive symptoms, perceived stress, and low life satisfaction among young adults. High-dimensional tracking data from the Copenhagen Network Study was used to objectively measure nighttime smartphone activity. We recorded more than 250,000 smartphone activities during self-reported sleep periods among 815 young adults (university students, mean age: 21.6 years, males: 77%) over 16 weekdays period. Mental health was measured at baseline using validated measures, and again at follow-up four months later. Associations between nighttime smartphone use and mental health were evaluated at baseline and at follow-up using multiple linear regression adjusting for potential confounding. Nighttime smartphone use was associated with a slightly higher level of perceived stress and depressive symptoms at baseline. For example, participants having 1-3 nights with smartphone use (out of 16 observed nights) had on average a 0.25 higher score (95%CI:0.08;0.41) on the Perceived stress scale ranging from 0 to 10. These differences were small and could not be replicated at follow-up. Contrary to the prevailing hypothesis, nighttime smartphone use is not strongly related to poor mental health, potentially because smartphone use is also a social phenomenon with associated benefits for mental health.

AB - Frequent nighttime smartphone use can disturb healthy sleep patterns and may adversely affect mental health and wellbeing. This study aims at investigating whether nighttime smartphone use increases the risk of poor mental health, i.e. loneliness, depressive symptoms, perceived stress, and low life satisfaction among young adults. High-dimensional tracking data from the Copenhagen Network Study was used to objectively measure nighttime smartphone activity. We recorded more than 250,000 smartphone activities during self-reported sleep periods among 815 young adults (university students, mean age: 21.6 years, males: 77%) over 16 weekdays period. Mental health was measured at baseline using validated measures, and again at follow-up four months later. Associations between nighttime smartphone use and mental health were evaluated at baseline and at follow-up using multiple linear regression adjusting for potential confounding. Nighttime smartphone use was associated with a slightly higher level of perceived stress and depressive symptoms at baseline. For example, participants having 1-3 nights with smartphone use (out of 16 observed nights) had on average a 0.25 higher score (95%CI:0.08;0.41) on the Perceived stress scale ranging from 0 to 10. These differences were small and could not be replicated at follow-up. Contrary to the prevailing hypothesis, nighttime smartphone use is not strongly related to poor mental health, potentially because smartphone use is also a social phenomenon with associated benefits for mental health.

KW - Adult

KW - Humans

KW - Loneliness

KW - Longitudinal Studies

KW - Male

KW - Mental Health

KW - Sleep

KW - Smartphone

KW - Young Adult

U2 - 10.1038/s41598-022-10116-z

DO - 10.1038/s41598-022-10116-z

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 35570230

VL - 12

JO - Scientific Reports

JF - Scientific Reports

SN - 2045-2322

IS - 1

M1 - 8013

ER -