Nowadays we rely on technology to make life better, but to a certain extent it might be making things worse. Smartphones and tablets disrupt our sleep; many people spend the first hour or so of their bedtime wandering through the internet. Looking page after page for information and entertainment. Information is available so quickly and everywhere to be found, leading to an information overload. The web provides immediate access to all sorts of information which, with the consumption of social media and usage of apps, it has resulted in many people finding it hard to fall asleep at night (Khazan, 2015).
One of the biggest causes why it is hard to fall asleep is the artificial light emitted from these smart devices. Especially the blue light, forcing us to stay awake by convincing our bodies that it is morning. This particular light is a biological clue for predicting when it’s morning. At night, there’s more red light than blue light, which signals your body to prepare for sleep. But when looking at blue light your body sends a “wake up” signal at night, which screws up our body’s biological clock (Welsh, 2014).
With a massive growing amount of information readiness and a decade of a fast changing industry of how we consume information, there is also a growing body of knowledge on the effects of what these information technologies do to our health, especially our sleep. There is a huge rise in sleep deprivation and the results are extremely worrying, its harm has been studied by a group of Harvard researchers, showing that it could shift sleep schedules by three hours. Getting less than seven hours sleep a night is associated with a range of problems, including an increased risk of obesity, heart attacks, diabetes and cancer (Harvard, 2015).
As for a solution to this growing problem, it could be as simple as putting your phone down and closing your eyes. Also most smartphones nowadays, offer an option to change the colour of the screen (Bolton, 2015). Plus, if you spend less time scouring the social media, and all the other things your smartphone can do, you will likely have a good night sleep
Sources:
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/02/how-smartphones-are-ruining-our-sleep/385792/
http://www.businessinsider.com/smartphone-is-destroying-your-sleep-2014-5
http://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/blue-light-has-a-dark-side
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/laptop-phone-sleep-bright-screen-flux-twilight-a6737696.html
One app I can personally recommend for use on your Mac or PC is f.lux (https://justgetflux.com) It helps to reduce all the blue light and make your screen slightly orange at sunset. After 23:00h (or whatever time you choose) it becomes even more orange. In the beginning it looks kinda weird, but if you are used to it you’ll want it on all your devices. For your Android phone there is Twilight (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.urbandroid.lux) and for your iPhone you can use the build in NightShift feature (iOS 9.3 and up): http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/night-shift-how-this-ios-9-3-feature-helped-me-sleep-better-1317815
But make sure you don’t use it while shopping online or while using photoshop otherwise the color might turn out a little different than you wanted it to be ;).