Bedtime social media use, sleep, and affective wellbeing in young adults: an experience sampling study
Open accessAbstract
Background: 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. Methods: Using a smartphone application, 101 undergraduate students ( M age = 19.70 years, SD = 1.09 years), completed daily questionnaires assessing the previous night’s bedtime social media use and sleep duration and satisfaction (one measurement per day, questionnaire sent at 08:00), and momentary affective wellbeing (five measurements per day, at randomly varying times between 08:00 and 22:00 on weekdays and 10:00 and 22:00 on weekends), for 14 consecutive days. Objective assessments of total sleep time and sleep efficiency were obtained via wrist‐worn actigraphs. By means of separate multilevel models, it was tested whether increased bedtime social media use predicted poorer sleep the same night, whether poorer sleep was predictive of positive and negative affect the following day, and whether sleep mediated the relationship between social media use and affective wellbeing. Results: Increased bedtime social media use was not associated with poorer sleep the same night. Apart from subjective sleep satisfaction, no other sleep variable (i.e., subjective sleep duration, objective total sleep time and objective sleep efficiency) predicted positive or negative affect the following day. Conclusions: This study found that bedtime social media use is not detrimental to the sleep and affective wellbeing of healthy young adults. However, it is possible that bedtime social media use may be harmful to the sleep of vulnerable individuals.
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Studies suggest an association between social media use/problematic social media use and sleep outcomes including sleep quality, sleep duration, insomnia, and daytime sleepiness.
“Studies also suggest an association between SMU/ PSMU and sleep outcomes, including sleep quality, sleep duration, insomnia, and daytime sleepiness (Das-Friebel et al., 2020; Kelly et al., 2018; Li et al., 2017; Nasirudeen et al., 2017; Wong et al., 2020).”
From Social media use, mental health and sleep: A systematic review with meta-analyses (2024) · cites this paper as Das-Friebel et al., 2020
The Introduction (page unavailable) reports earlier studies associating social media use with shorter sleep duration, sleep difficulties, and poorer sleep patterns. It does not substantiate the sentence’s specific references to problematic social media use, insomnia, or daytime sleepiness. The Results (page unavailable) also found no association between bedtime use and poorer subjective sleep duration or sleep satisfaction in this study. (LLM, conf=0.85)
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- Authors
- Das‐Friebel, A., Lenneis, A., Realo, A., Sanborn, A., Tang, N. K. Y., Wolke, D., von Mühlenen, A., & Lemola, S.
- Affiliations
- University of Warwick (GB)
- Department of Psychology University of Warwick Coventry UK
- Bielefeld University (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Das‐Friebel, Ahuti
- ORCID
- Venue
- Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2020-09-14
- Volume
- 61
- Issue
- 10
- Pages
- 1138-1149
- ISSN
- 0021-9630 (ISSN-L)
- 1469-7610
- OpenAlex
- W3081030350
- Cited by
- 71
- References
- 25
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 20 · 2024: 16 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 1
- FWCI
- 5.80
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Warwick Research Archive Portal (University of Warwick) (submittedVersion)
- Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld (Universität Bielefeld) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- University of Warwick
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Sleep and related disorders
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Impact of Technology on Adolescents
- Social Sciences › Education › Child Development and Digital Technology
- Keywords
- sleep, affective wellbeing, young adults, positive and negative affect, sleep duration, sleep efficiency, sleep satisfaction, mediation, actigraphy
- MeSH terms
- Ecological Momentary Assessment, Adolescent, Female, Health Status, Humans, Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders, Male, Surveys and Questionnaires, Sleep, Young Adult, Social Media
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