A smartphone can do a lot at bedtime, from setting an alarm or playing a podcast to answering one last message or making it easy to keep scrolling.
Recent Pew Research Center data suggests that many Americans see a downside. In a survey of 9,750 U.S. adults, 41% said using their smartphone hurts the amount of sleep they get. Just 5% said it helps, while 46% said it neither helps nor hurts.
The difference by age is especially striking. Among adults ages 18 to 29, 62% said smartphone use hurts how much sleep they get. That drops to 52% among those ages 30 to 49, 36% among ages 50 to 64, and 14% among adults 65 and older.
The Pew findings are consistent with another recent survey on screens at bedtime. An American Academy of Sleep Medicine survey released earlier this year found that 38% of adults said using a phone or tablet before bed to look at news and current events made their sleep slightly or significantly worse.
Smartphones are clearly part of the sleep picture for many people, especially younger adults. And many are already thinking about how much time they spend on them. Pew found that 53% of U.S. adults believe they spend too much time on their smartphone, and 45% said they had tried to cut back during the previous year.
Sources: Pew Research Center; American Academy of Sleep Medicine
