Impact of Mobile Phones on Sleep

RESEARCH PAPER

Getting sufficient sleep is important for optimal daytime performance and wellbeing. The NHS states that babies sleep around seventeen hours each day while older children only need nine (9) to ten (10) hours each night and most adults need around eight (8) hours sleep each day ( Sleeping well 2001,online ). Sleep disturbances increases the risk of physical and mental problems. This will go on to have a negative impact on the performance of the individual during the day ( Hor and Tafti 2009 ).

Having the importance of sleep established and how sleeping can affect people greatly. The following project that will focus on how the change in habits is contributing to the negative sleep pattern. They are so many researches that have been done to establish the effects of gadgets especially mobile phones on the sleeping patterns of people.

In a case study that was done, ” how mobile phones affect sleep”? It was established that a lot of people owned mobile phones and would take it to bed. The reason being they want to use it as an alarm to wake them up. The chances are that the same phone would have kept you up all night on social media, emails and internet ( Hall, 2013 ). Another research found out that it is true a lot of people sleep with their phones. According to this research sleeping patterns are affected when one is exposed to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields found in a mobile phone ( Loughran et al , 2005 ). The survey was carried out on fifty (50) participants who were exposed to electromagnetic fields for 30 mins prior to sleep. The results showed evidence that mobile phone exposure prior to sleep may promote rapid eye movement sleep and it goes on to modify the eye movement sleep period.

Our case study is going to be looking at the effects of mobile phones on sleeping patterns as well but we have trimmed it to students at Bradford College. The title of the research will be, “How mobile phones affect the sleeping pattern of students at Bradford College. Such a study has not been done and it would be important to gather information at local level and see to what extent the mobile phones are contributing to the sleeping patterns of students at Bradford College. A recent survey that was carried out online on college students showed that almost 99% of the students had mobile phones ( Pearson , 2015 ). This background will help us gather more reliable information as there is variety and more participants. It will also contribute to transparent results as it will be easy to have equal number of participants representing the different genders.

The main objective of the research is to understand how college students use their mobile phones after hours and especially an hour before going to bed. Establishing where the mobile phone is left during the night. Pearson ( 2015) goes on to show that there is a high usage of mobile phones to do school work these days. Technology is the order of the day and it extends to college students as well. As more and more work is done online and on gadgets the college students are likely to use mobile phones to do assignments. The research at Bradford College will establish if it is true and to what extent.

There is a social learning theory that alludes to people getting education through observing others behaviour, attitudes and even outcomes of those behaviours ( Learning – T , 2015 ). For example children observe the people around them behaving in various ways and this was illustrated during the famous bobo doll experiment ( Bandura ,1961). This could why people do similar things it is from observing learning. This research will be the first of type and can benefit the students and the college at large. Performance and results could be improved greatly if it were to be established that the mobile phones were affecting the performance of the student. The research will give us more insight to the positive and negative usage of mobile phones after hours to the students.

A lot of the media messages are misleading. The information given is usually promoting organizations trying to sell a product without also educating the public on the side effects of the same products ( Brannon and Fiesta, 2003). Our research is important to show how these gadgets that are meant to make life easy have also helped to bring health problems as well.

This research is also going to establish if the college students are suffering from sleep deprivation. Evidence consistently and overwhelmingly have shown that more people are using the mobile phones during sleeping hours. Thereby depriving themselves of quality sleep and affects their health (Clow and Edmunds, 2013). Hopefully the research will also help to assess the danger these gadgets cause to the eyes. Exposure of the eye to illumination in a dark place has detrimental effect to the health of a human being (Doshi et al, 2005).

Researches are essential and a good way for us to gather essential information about a subject. The results will always vary as they are two people who are the same. Personalities are so different and vary so much.

REFERENCES

Brannon, L. and Feist, J. (2003) Health psychology: An introduction to behaviour and health. 4^th edn. Stamford, CT; London; Singapore; Scarborough, Ontario; Wadsworth/Thomson Learning. 616.001 9 BRA.

Clow, A. and Edmunds, S. (2013) Physical activity and mental health. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics Publishers, 616.89 PHY.

Doshi, S., Harvey, W. and Doshi,ip (2005) Eye essentials: Assessment and investigative techniques. Edinburgh: Elsevier, Butterworth Heinemann. 617.715 DOS.

Hall,K. (2013) How your phone might be stealing your sleep . Available at: http://www.m,huffpost.com/us/entry/2680805 ( Accessed 29 December 2016).

Hor, H. and Tafti, M. (2009) “How much sleep do we need?”, Perspective, 325(5942), pp. 825-826.doi: 10.1126/ science. 1178713

Learning-T (2015) Social learning theory Bandura social learning theory. Available at: https://www.google.co.uk/url?

Pearson student mobile device survey 2015 national report: College students conducted by Harris Poll (2015) Available at: http://www.pearsoned.com/wp-content/uploads/2015-Pearson-Student-Mobile-Device-Survey-College. Pdf (Accessed: 2 January 2017 at 17:56)

Sleeping well (2011) Available at: http://www.nhs.uk/ipgmedia/national /royal%20college%20of%20psychiatrists/assets/sleepingwell.pdf ( Accessed: 29 December 2016).