It is well-known that video-gaming has increased markedly in recent years, particularly among children and teenagers. Playing video-games may disrupt sleep through a variety of routes – from increasing emotional and physiological arousal due to stimulating content, through to increased light exposure close to bedtime. Although several studies have established an association between disturbed sleep and electronic media use, there has been little work using controlled experimental designs to quantify the impact of video-game play on subsequent sleep, using objective and subjective measures.
To address this gap, Daniel King and colleagues from Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia, recruited 17 adolescents (average age=16 yrs) to sleep for two nights in the sleep laboratory. On one night, they played a violent video-game (on a PlayStation 3) for 50 minutes before retiring to bed and, on the other night, one week apart, they played the same video-game for 2.5 hrs prior to falling asleep. The order of video-game exposure (50 mins versus 2.5 hrs) was randomised so that some of the group experienced the 50 minute condition in the first week, whereas others experienced the 2.5hrs condition in the first week. Heart rate was recorded during both video-game play and sleep, to index physiological arousal. Ten minutes after completing the video-game, participants slept overnight in the sleep laboratory where polysomonography was conducted. On awakening, participants also completed a sleep diary to assess subjective perceptions of sleep quality.
The main results, published in the Journal of Sleep Research, showed that when participants were exposed to 2.5 hrs of video-game play prior to bed, subsequent objective sleep was shorter (by 27 minutes) and less efficient (more wake-time during the entire time-in-bed) compared to when they only played the video-game for 50 minutes.
Although objective measures did not suggest any differences with respect to time taken to fall asleep, participants reported taking longer to fall asleep and tended to rate sleep as poorer quality after prolonged video-game exposure. No differences were observed for heart rate between video-game exposure lengths.
The authors report that the reduction in sleep efficiency, by an average of 7%, is significant because it reflects impairment in sleep to a level considered clinically relevant, which may have implications for daytime functioning and possibly academic performance:
“Prolonged video-gaming before normal bedtime caused a clinically significant reduction in adolescent sleep time. It may be extrapolated that long-term or repeated prolonged video-gaming may produce cognitive deficits associated with chronic sleep reduction”
Do you play video games? Do you feel like they have an impact on your sleep?
King, D. L., Gradisar, M., Drummond, A., Lovato, N., Wessel, J., Micic, G., Douglas, P. and Delfabbro, P. (2012), The impact of prolonged violent video-gaming on adolescent sleep: an experimental study. Journal of Sleep Research. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2869.2012.01060.x