Kids Sleep Less With a TV, Computer in Their Bedroom

September 4, 2008

Adults these days may not remember their parents yelling at them "Turn off that television/computer and go to sleep!" But they probably find themselves handing out that advice to their children on a nightly basis. And for a good reason, as research conducted by the University of Haifa and Jezreel Valley College in Israel has found that kids who have a television or computer in their room sleep less during the school year compared with their peers who don't. Researchers followed 444 middle school children with an average age of 14 and found the average bedtime was 11:04 p.m. with a wake-up time of 6:45 a.m. Children who had a television or computer in their room on average went to sleep 30 minutes later. They also spent an hour more than their peers watching television or using the computer. The National Sleep Foundation's 2004 Sleep in America poll found that school-aged children are the most likely to have a television in their bedroom (43 percent); although parents/caregivers report nearly one-third of preschoolers and even 20 percent of infants and toddlers have a television in the bedroom.

• Read the Reuters article.
• Learn more about the 2004 Sleep in America poll.