TV and other electronic devices explain why children sleep badly

Does your child sleep badly? Is it hard to reconcile the dream when he goes to bed and do not know why? Maybe the television he has in the bedroom has a lot to do with it. Well, the television, the mobile, the tablet and any other electronic device.

The reason for this comes to remember a new study published in the journal Pediatrics. According to this, children who have these equipment in their rooms sleep less that those who are not exposed to electronic devices in their bedrooms.

"Although more studies are needed to replicate our results, we know that spending too much time on devices is bad for children's health", says the lead author of the work, Jennifer Falbe, a researcher at the University of California at Berkley.


This new work has used previous studies that had shown that television in children's rooms decreases the time of dream, while sleeping less is associated with problems such as obesity and decreased school performance.

Dream and television

To reach their conclusions, these researchers analyzed data from 2048 students from fourth to seventh grade in the United States. They were all participants in a study on Massachusetts obesity. After the analysis, they found that children who had a TV set In their room they slept about 18 minutes less per night than children without TV in the room.


According to Scientific American, which has echoed the study, children who slept near small screens, such as mobile phones or other portable devices, slept about 21 minutes less per night than those who did not sleep near that type of equipment . Also, the first group felt that they were not getting enough sleep.

Television and videogames

Another conclusion of the work is that which relates the alteration of sleep with watching television and playing video game. At this point, he points out that Hispanic and African-American children were especially vulnerable to these effects. Even so, the researchers did not find enough data to explain why this happened.

It is not the first time experts warn about how television affects the quality of children's sleep. In this sense, Dr. Heidi Connolly, of the Medical Center of the University of Rochester (New York), has told Scientific American that the novelty of this study is that it proves that not only television influences sleep, but that they do so all electronic devices.


"The brain needs associate the fact of being in bed with the sleep schedule. The only thing that children should do in bed is sleep, "says this expert, who insists that this class of electronic devices should be outside the bedrooms.

Damián Montero

Video: Children Addicted to TV & Video Games | Supernanny


Interesting Articles

Correct and know how to wait

Correct and know how to wait

Man needs to be corrected. There are things that one does without realizing and others, realizing. An uncorrected person is a person not valued. If we want someone to fail completely as a person, all...

The danger of excess duties for children

The danger of excess duties for children

Each evening upon arriving home after several hours of class, and those corresponding to extracurricular activities, our children face homework. With hardly any time between activities and bath time...