Research Suggests Gaming Before Bed Disrupts Sleep

[Vrach]

I thought it was supposed to be ANY screen activity that's bad to do before bed. Video games would be no exception, I would think.

Oh, studies. You so funny.

^This. It's not so much screen activity, it's just anything that gets you interested, excited and the like. With TV, I can watch Simpsons or re-watch most, if not all shows I've seen before and fall asleep. If I watch a new episode of Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad and the like though, my brain's gonna be too interested in what's happening on the screen to want to fall asleep.

Of course, even that's not set in stone, if you tire yourself out, your brain will just not want to follow anything.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Well I game, I sleep like a rock and I don't wake until my alarm goes. I'm not trying to disprove the study here, I'd just advise against unnecessary measures if they're not needed.

But that said...pitiful sample size, one gender, one type of game and poor analysis of game-specific factors. I'm happy to dismiss this out-of-hand.

 

[Darth Sea Bass]

No shit Sherlock! And it's not just limited to teenagers this i know from personal experience.

 

[Sylveria]

Allow me to simplify this article "Stimulus before bed disrupts sleep."

Interesting...because I totally never knew this before...

The 17 participants played a newly released...

Wait, 17? What a shit number of people that is. Well, let me tell you about MY "study" that took 20 people and we went on a three-day marathon at a LAN party and only 6 of us didn't make the full time. After that everyone got 6 hours of sleep and was ready to go again. This proves that humans don't actually need sleep at all except very sparingly and only for a few hours every other day.

I would like a headline now.

The study, which was conducted by Masters student Daniel King with supervision from child sleep psychologist Dr. Michael Gradisar, included 17 participants.

Ummm, is no one else going to point out how terrible the sample size is?
Because the sample size is nigh on abysmal.
Taking a handful of people is not what constitutes a proper study, you need at least a few hundred to have a certain degree of credibility, more if you're feeling sassy.

The sampling size is terrible.. But playing fast paced shooters that get your adrenaline going immediately before you go sleep is hardly going to help you is it?

Honestly, he didn't even need a sampling size of 17. The guy could have just read an already existing book

The study, which was conducted by Masters student Daniel King with supervision from child sleep psychologist Dr. Michael Gradisar, included 17 participants.

Ummm, is no one else going to point out how terrible the sample size is?
Because the sample size is nigh on abysmal.
Taking a handful of people is not what constitutes a proper study, you need at least a few hundred to have a certain degree of credibility, more if you're feeling sassy.

No, it doesn't matter how large your sample size is as long as you have 95% certainty- where 95% of your test subjects fall in the first standard deviation of what you were testing. While sample size helps, it doesn't necessarily matter in the long run.

Learn how research actually works before you go shitting on it. There is no lab in the world that has the money to get a sample size of hundreds of people, so if you expect that you need a massive sample size to determine something, then you must think that basically every scientific paper put out ever is invalid.

I think you need to learn how statistics work. I just asked 3 people to read your comment and they all said it was inane. My study will now conclude that 100% of people think your comment is inane. I also just flipped two pennies. They both landed heads up. Pennies land head-up 100% of the time.

Yes, sample size matters. Sample size lends credibility to your results as the larger your sample size, the smaller the risk of results being artificially skewed by an anomalous trend within a small segment of the sample. Good, conclusive, representative research takes time and more than half a class-room full of people. Hacks and people trying to trump up numbers are the only people who do research like this and call it definitive. Any high-school statistics teacher will tell you that.

 

[veloper]

Any kind of excitement, alertness, stress or worry makes it harder to sleep, no reason to put it all on videogames.

Oh, it's Australia again.

 

[surg3n]

The brain is addicted to stimulus - if you play an action packed game before bed, your brain wants to keep playing, even if you don't. Happens to me mostly with Battlefield games, my brain must love that shit.

Sounds to me like a waste of time and money - is anyone at all surprised, or educated by these results!
We do not need science to backup common sense.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Never happened to me. I always get a good 9 hours sleep. I sleep like a baby.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

Tetris or something relaxing.

You compare Tetris to a relaxing game O.O??

Indeed. I find it comforting to fill the lines and clean up the screen; most likely an element of OCD behind that. It's the same as brushing my teeth and straightening my bed and setting my alarm and finishing a book chapter I was on because they give me a sense of completion which helps me relax.

 

[Batou667]

Gaming before bed disrupts sleep

And in other news: Pope Catholic, bear shit found in woods; more at ten.

Actually though, I'm such a sucker for late-night gaming that it'd be more accurate to say that sleep disrupts my gaming before bed.

 

[Ickorus]

The study, which was conducted by Masters student Daniel King with supervision from child sleep psychologist Dr. Michael Gradisar, included 17 participants.

Ummm, is no one else going to point out how terrible the sample size is?
Because the sample size is nigh on abysmal.
Taking a handful of people is not what constitutes a proper study, you need at least a few hundred to have a certain degree of credibility, more if you're feeling sassy.

Given that the guy who ran the study is a student I'm led to believe this was part of his thesis or something and wasn't meant to be taken as a full on professional study.

Which leads me to ask the question of why it was noteworthy enough to be taken as news here on the escapist.

 

[PunkRex]

I always guessed this but id say the same thing for most 'exciting' media e.g. movies. Not to mention teenage boys don't have the most 'balanced' bodies in regards to human biology.

 

[mysecondlife]

Instead, play Sly Cooper before bed.

I slept like an angel.

 

[Aaron Sylvester]

I guess teenage gamer girls were too difficult to find

 

[King of Asgaard]

The study, which was conducted by Masters student Daniel King with supervision from child sleep psychologist Dr. Michael Gradisar, included 17 participants.

Ummm, is no one else going to point out how terrible the sample size is?
Because the sample size is nigh on abysmal.
Taking a handful of people is not what constitutes a proper study, you need at least a few hundred to have a certain degree of credibility, more if you're feeling sassy.

Given that the guy who ran the study is a student I'm led to believe this was part of his thesis or something and wasn't meant to be taken as a full on professional study.

Which leads me to ask the question of why it was noteworthy enough to be taken as news here on the escapist.

Exactly. I understand a student's lack of resources/time when studies are involved, fair enough.
But if that's the case, it's not really all that impressive a find, to be honest.

 

[crystalsnow]

Oh ffs... It's not video games, it's the bright lights. Watching television or even browsing the internet will do the exact same shit. This isn't news either. This has been known for decades. Quit blowing shit out of proportion, Escapist.

 

[The Wykydtron]

Good job Captain Obvious! We would have never thought of that information without you! What's that? You've discovered that humans need to breathe oxygen to survive?! Egads that's amazing! You've done it again sir!

Really I could have thought of that myself. Playing Bayonetta on hard mode at 2 in the morning hardly helps me slee-ohfuckingG&GfuckoffNOOOO
;_;

 

[Milata]

I sleep sooth fully listening to heavy metal, so i'm just gonna assume this won't apply to me.

 

[ReinWeisserRitter]

I'd have a lot harder time sleeping if this was the case; the last thing I do before bed is play a video game, usually. As it stands, I'm probably the most sound sleeper I know, to the point where getting out of bed after waking up as opposed to going back to sleep for another hour or two is often difficult for me.

 

[Al-Bundy-da-G]

Interesting...because I totally never knew this before...

The 17 participants played a newly released...

Wait, 17? What a shit number of people that is. Well, let me tell you about MY "study" that took 20 people and we went on a three-day marathon at a LAN party and only 6 of us didn't make the full time. After that everyone got 6 hours of sleep and was ready to go again. This proves that humans don't actually need sleep at all except very sparingly and only for a few hours every other day.

I would like a headline now.

"Man Grows Mustaches in Mass to Protect the Worlds Lips From Being Chapped By the Terrible World Wide Blizzard."

How's that?