All night long: problematic media use is differentially associated with sleep quality and depression by medium

Abstract

ABSTRACT Media use appears to adversely affect sleep quality. Yet, findings remain inconsistent based on medium, duration, and manner of use. Given the recent, widespread rise in consumption of video-on-demand services and social media platforms, problematic use of these media has become of interest to media and sleep researchers. Although research has looked at the correlation between problematic media use and sleep, to date no studies have compared different media platforms to better understand the processes. To address this, we conducted a survey examining the relationships between both sleep quality and depression with problematic broadcast television, video-on-demand, and social media use. Results demonstrate problematic Internet-based media consumption, i.e., video-on-demand and social media use, is related to adverse sleep outcomes while broadcast television use, even when problematic, was not related to adverse sleep outcomes in our study. Similar results were found for depression. Implications for research and clinical practice are discussed.