Investigating the Effects of Social Media Usage on Sleep Quality

Social media usage is widespread among young adults. While the effects of social media usage on depression have been documented, studies to investigate the effects on sleep quality are largely absent. As part of the requirements for a graduate course at Texas A&M University, a user study was conducted to investigate whether usage of social media before bed time would result in sleep disturbance and diminished sleep quality. Ten participants were asked to not use social media before bed (baseline) for one week and use several popular applications for three weeks. While the effects were not statistically significant, social media usage before sleep might still negatively affect sleep quality. Further research with an increased sample size conducted over a longer period is warranted to investigate such effects.