Is Your Teenager Checking Their Mobile Phone During The Night? Almost half of all teenagers are checking their mobile phones after bed time. A survey of 11-18-year-olds found that 10% check their mobile phones up to 10 times a night for notifications, texts and emails
Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ are finding pupils are coming to school tired and unable to concentrate. There is definitely an impact on children attending lessons when they are not having a good nights sleep.
Digital Awareness UK carried out the survey and of the 45% of the pupils surveyed are checking their mobile phones during the night when they should be sleeping are on Social Media checking to make sure they do not miss out on posts.
Some admit to just listening to music or watching films
The findings also show:
- 68% of all respondents say using their mobile devices at night affects their school work
- a quarter says they feel tired during the day because of how often they use their mobile device at night
- almost half (42%) keep their phone next to their bed at night
Whatever age you are, excessive social media consumption is affecting our physical and emotional wellbeing, especially children. Some are waking up with over 100 notifications from conversations that have happened overnight. They feel overwhelmed with what they are missing out on what is happening in their groups or just general social media gossip.
We have become slaves to technology It’s not that this technology is all bad and terrible It is more a case that the reality is technology is here to say and we just need to use it in a positive way.
5 screen-time tips
- Do not use your mobile phone or laptop/tablets 90 minutes before bedtime
- Turn your phone to silent or better still turn the phone off altogether if you can
- Change the brightness on your phone this can be done in the settings area
- Try and break the habit of checking your mobile phone all the time even during the day
- Ideally keep your phone away from the bed so you cannot see it or hear it and have to actually get out of bed which most people will steer away from
Go for a Digital Detox once a week for 3 hours- take a break from devices altogether turn them off. You can start this as 1 hours to try it then build up to 3 hours. At first, you will feel quite lost but as you get used to it you will feel free and not tied waiting for the next notification to arrive.