Over the last few years, technology companies have begun building smartphones and tablets for children. Samsung's Galaxy Tab 4 has a "kids mode", while the Amazon Kindle Fire 7 Kids Edition and Leapfrog's Leappad are specifically designed for kids from the ground up.
This is good thing, because it gives kids access to new forms of play and learning that previous generations could only have dreamed of. But it does have a downside, which is that the use of tablets and phones before bed disrupts sleep.
Duration and Quality
"Our study provides further proof of the detrimental effect of media devices on both sleep duration and quality," said Ben Carter from King's College, who led the research. He added that tablets and similar devices harm sleep in several ways - including delaying or interrupting sleep hours, stimulating the brain and affecting sleep cycles, physiology and alertness.
"Sleep is an often undervalued but important part of children’s development, with a regular lack of sleep causing a variety of health problems. With the ever growing popularity of portable media devices and their use in schools as a replacement for textbooks, the problem of poor sleep amongst children is likely to get worse."
"Our findings suggest that an integrated approach involving parents, teachers, and healthcare professionals is necessary to reduce access to these devices and encourage good sleeping habits near bedtime."
The full details of the research were published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.
