Professor Elizabeth Dowell of Villanova University surveyed 300 students about their nighttime activities regarding their cell phones and got back some interesting results. 25 to 35% of the students polled admitted to texting in their sleep. Another 50% admitted that texting disturbed their sleep in some way.
Sleep texting tends to happen during naps or approximately 90 minutes to 2 hours into snoozing, before you have achieved deep sleep, which is the restorative part of sleep. It affects the brain’s ability to make decisions and process information the next day and the next, for as long as it continues to occur.
The phenomenon should not be surprising, as research provided by the Pew Internet and American Life Project shows that teens on average spend an hour and a half texting each day and that 1 in 3 teens send over 100 text messages a day. 4 in 5 teens sleep with their phone on their bed or very close to it. For the most part, the sleep texting is not immediately harmful but it does affect our long-term sleep health.
To improve upon the behavior, it is recommended that you turn your phone off or put it in “silent” mode. Consider scheduling a time in which you will no longer touch electronic devices or place your phone out of reach to escape the seduction of technology.
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