Using Your Phone at Night: Best Worst Choice

By Serena Shim

With social media apps being such a big part of our lives, we tend to always keep our phones right next to us even when we’re about to go to sleep. If you are like me, you probably have a habit of staying on your phone before you sleep or once you wake up to “check on emails” and eventually end up scrolling through TikTok for an hour. It is an entertaining and fun habit to stay connected with friends who I hadn’t talked to or seen in a while, especially during the pandemic now. It’s nice to be so connected to the world around us through technology and to have loads of information in front of our eyes just through the touch of our fingertips, but you probably don’t realize how your phone habits are affecting your sleep and your brain’s health. While staying on your phone before falling asleep may seem like a harmless habit, it can actually have a huge impact on your health. 

When it is time to turn off the lights and fall asleep, the last thing our brain needs is more information and entertainment, especially since during the day we give our brains more than enough to think about. Checking your phone stimulates the brain to become more active and alert. What makes the habit of checking your phone at night even worse is feeling the need to constantly be available. We have become so accustomed to feeling like we can never really go “offline,” even when we are sleeping. This keeps us constantly feeling the need to immediately answer, respond, or post. Another important thing to keep in mind is that your mind stays active and engaged long after you’ve responded to a couple of messages or watched a YouTube video. Going to bed and falling asleep should be a peaceful and calming experience. 

Interacting with your phone before going to sleep also suppresses melatonin, which is a hormone responsible for controlling your sleep-wake cycle. How? The blue light that your phone emits is bad for your vision, though its artificial color actually mimics daylight which could be helpful in making you feel more alert during the day. However, that is the opposite of what you need at night when you are going to bed. Many research studies have shown a correlation between suppressed levels of melatonin and exposure to blue light. Exposure to blue light can additionally affect your internal body clock and throw off your circadian rhythm, which is essentially your sleep cycle. So when your body has low amounts of melatonin, you are more prone to insomnia, tiredness during the day, and irritability. Night phone use delays REM sleep as well. Regardless of whether you’re seeing something happy or upsetting on Facebook, it triggers a response that prolongs falling asleep. Checking your phone can lead to distracting thoughts, emotions, and anxiety, which can leave you feeling wide awake for hours. Other studies revealed that using our phones is not only detrimental to our sleep, but is also linked to obesity and poor academic performance. 

So what should you do? Of course the best thing to do is turn your phone off (or maybe use an internet blocking app?)… but avoiding our screens is difficult. Trust me, I have been trying not to binge Netflix shows at night and I can’t resist! Try establishing a relaxing bedtime routine with activities that promote sleep such as reading, journaling, or doing a face mask. Maybe instead of binge watching a show or YouTube, listen to a podcast to get some entertainment before drifting off without taking in the light from a screen. There are also some podcasts that are specifically for relaxing before bed. If you really must use your phone in bed before sleeping, you might want to consider activating night mode on your screen or wearing blue light blocking glasses (here’s a cute pair from Amazon). Apple has Night Shift, which is a built in software feature that converts the screen color spectrum from blue to yellow. This is supposed to be easier on your vision and improve sleep quality. Blue light blocking glasses are also able to block blue light from all sources. Different glasses range from inexpensive to more stylish and expensive pairs. Whatever you choose to do, remember that blue light is not always bad since there are times that you want to be awake, too!