Study: Sleep After Video Games is No Problem

Contrary to popular belief, a study found that playing video games before bed doesn’t really affect teens’ ability to fall asleep. The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine (via the BBC), had teens spend 50 minutes playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare while tucked into bed, then timed how long it took them to fall asleep. Then, a week later, researchers measured time until sleep for the same group after they watched “March of the Penguins.” Although most of the 13 teenage boys, aged 14 through 18, took a little longer to fall asleep after playing Call of Duty, the difference wasn’t significant — roughly 7-and-a-half minute after gaming and 3 minutes after watching the movie.

Considering that a few of the teens actually fell asleep during March of the Penguins, that difference in awake time isn’t too bad. Michael Gradisar, a senior lecturer in clinical child psychology and head of the project, said his team purposely chose a big contrast between relaxing film and intense game. “We were surprised that playing the violent video game did not lead to a much longer time taken to fall asleep,” he said. Still, he warned that in the real world, teenagers might play for longer than 50 minutes at a time, and the narrow scope of the study means this isn’t conclusive.

Whatever, I’m just happy to see a video game related study that isn’t spun into hysteria. A lesser university or scientific journal might’ve used the headline “Teens Half as Likely to Fall Asleep After Violent Video Games Everybody Freak Out.” [via the BBC]