The Impact of the Use of Electronic and Digital Devices before Bedtime on Sleep Sufficiency among Iraqi Young People

Young people often rely on electronic and digital media devices to accomplish many of their daily tasks, which may interfere with their daily physical activities. This study aims to find out the relationship between the use of electronic and digital devices before bedtime and sleep sufficiency among Iraqi young people.

This was an analytical, cross-sectional study that was conducted on 383 young adults aged 18-25 years attending in Al-Tahrir Primary Health Care Center for immunization through purposive sampling technique from   September 15, 2019 to January 10, 2020. The tool was a researcher- made questionnaire. The SPSS 20 was used for statistical analysis, where the t-test was used to find a possible relationship between the variables. The descriptive statistics included percent, means and standard deviations, independent sample T-test was used to find a possible relationship between the variables. All statistical analysis was conducted in SPSS software version 20 with considering significant level of 5%.

Mean (SD) use of electronic or digital devices at night in terms of watching television, using play station, using computer, using cell phone for gaming, and using mobile for the Internet [2.8 (3.48), 1.20 (2.0), 2.13  (3.16), 5.37 (5.0) and 10.90 (6.08)] respectively. As a result, there was a significant difference regarding the use of the cell phone for games (P-value= 0.011) and for social media (P-value= 0.000). The mean use of cell phone per night was statistically higher (20.38 minutes) than those who reported having sufficient hours of sleep (10.38 minutes) (P- value=0.040). The study also observed that the mean number of cell phone calls (5.16) was statistically associated with inadequate sleep hours per night (P-value=0.022).

This study found that most participants reported adequate sleep hours after electronic or digital devices were turned off. This is because the increase in the mean number of calls and the minutes during calls before going to sleep was significantly associated with a lack of sleep.