Investigation of the influence of 45-minute pre-sleep social media use on sleep quality and memory consolidation in adolescents

Adolescents devote a significant portion of their time to smartphone usage, often engaging in social media activities. Social media use has previously been linked to diminished sleep quality and reduced sleep durations in correlational studies. In this experimental study, we aimed to investigate the influence of pre-sleep social media use on memory consolidation, subjective arousal and objectively assessed sleep quality in adolescents. We compared the social media condition to two reading conditions, one involving reading a book on a smartphone and the other reading from a physical book in a within-subjects design. Twenty participants between 12 and 14 years engaged in these activities for 45 min before bedtime. Contrary to our expectations, the results indicated that pre-sleep social media use did not have a discernible impact on sleep quality, pre-sleep arousal or memory consolidation. All assessed sleep measures remained consistent across the three conditions. Subjectively, the social media condition was rated less thrilling than the reading conditions. This suggests that, within the confines of this experiment, pre-sleep social media exposure did not significantly disrupt adolescents' sleep or their ability to consolidate memories during sleep. This deviation from previous correlational studies might be explained by a possible impact of mental health factors on media consumption and sleep or the fact that contrary to their daily routines participants had to sleep after our intervention and could not continue to engage in their activities. This highlights the need for further investigations into the complexities of this interaction.