Some time ago, I woke up a groggy mess and cast about for who was responsible — only to remember I’d stayed up doomscrolling on my phone until the wee hours of the night. I resolved to start leaving my phone out of the bedroom to remove temptation, which became its own test as I worried about potential missed texts or calls from loved ones.
There are pros and cons to having your phone in your bedroom during sleep, and they shift depending on the circumstances. For instance, caregivers or emergency workers who need to respond to calls in the middle of the night likely need their phones as close as possible while they rest. Ditto for anyone on call if a loved one needs a ride in the late hours. For many of us, phones are the do-all gadget that also functions as an alarm clock — so why would you leave it outside the bedroom?
Studies have shown that habitually using phones late at night may lead to poorer task performance and mental health. While most of those studies have tracked student behavior, it doesn’t matter if you’ve got a pop quiz in the morning or an Excel spreadsheet to fill out; if you’re up late mainlining a rectangle of blue light that keeps your brain spinning with TikToks and social posts, it’s going to take a toll the day after.
Read more: 5 Reasons You Should Unplug From Social Media
After surveying over 180,000 Australian students for a 2018 paper in the journal Sleep on the impact of late-night phone use and sleep, University of South Australia psychology professor Kurt Lushington has been exploring the same effects in adults. Although the research is preliminary, “digital device use at bedtime is associated with worse sleep and next day performance which mirrors what others have found,” Lushington said.
For adults, the phenomenon might not just be using phones in the bedroom, but continuing to use any device late at night for work or play. “Using a digital device at bedtime simply represents a continuum of overwork which may be more responsible for deficits than taking a device to bed per se,” Lushington said. He acknowledged that adults have other reasons to keep their phones nearby, including listening to podcasts or music to help them drift off to sleep.
Read more: The 7 Best Sleep Headphones in 2023
On the bright side, Lushington’s more recent study of Australian boarding students who stayed at school overnight found an enlightening consensus: boarders slept better overnight than non-boarding peers because of strict policies preventing them from taking devices to bed.
Adopting similar no-device rules could be helpful, but phones have become our lifelines to the outside world, and cutting the digital umbilical — even for the nocturnal hours when we’re not awake to use them — can be hard. Here’s how I did it.
