Caffeine and Multitasking: Study Says Teens Staying Up Too Long Into the Night
Powered by caffeine-laden drinks, too many teens are up into the late hours of the night multitasking using the Internet, sending text messages or emails - with serious consequences, says a recent study.
The study, led by Dr. Christina Calamaro, Drexel University, looked at teen use of caffeine and technology and how it related to sleep loss. Results suggest that when teens continue to perform several tasks at once into the night, they have a higher risk for daytime sleeping and associated problems in school.
During the study, researchers requested students in the age bracket of 12 to 18 years fill out a questionnaire related to their consumption of caffeinated beverages and their use of technology, as well as their sleep habits. Most of the teens in the study were actively using technology, with two-thirds (66 percent) having their own television in the room in which they sleep. Nearly one-third had a computer in their room, and almost all - 90 percent - were using a cell phone.
The majority of teens in the study were engaging in several media or technology devices during sleeping hours. Only one-fifth of the students were getting enough rest at night, which most experts agree is eight hours. For most U.S. teens, the number is less - around seven hours. Close to one-third of the teens in the study had said they had fallen asleep while at school.
Caffeine levels were also related to teen sleepiness during the school day period. Of the teens who were sleeping at school, the level of caffeine they were taking in was 76 percent higher than their peers in the study. The beverages they consumed were often the energy drinks that have been promoted to teens, said researchers.
Not only were teens who used technology and caffeine drinks falling asleep during school, the rate at which they had problems getting to sleep on school nights and staying awake during school seemed connected to how many different technology devices they were using at once. Using an index to measure the teens' levels of multitasking, researchers looked at how many types of devices they were using - such as MP3s, computers and DVDs, but also measuring tasks including homework - during typical sleeping hours.
Many of the teens were multitasking, and most with caffeine. More than 11 percent of teens in the study were consuming levels of caffeine equal to four shots of espresso. While caffeine consumption is a contributing factor, researchers speculate that the most significant determining factor for the amount of sleep teens received each night was related to their level of multitasking.
Additional concerns stated by the researchers involved excess calorie consumption, as many high-caffeine beverages contain significant calorie contents. Future studies may look at how teen sleep behaviors are connected to their level of depression symptoms and their ability to make decisions.
