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The impact of school shutdown on sleep in adolescents: a natural experiment

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Re: The impact of school shutdown on sleep in adolescents: a natural experiment

#21

Post by ByteJockey »

bigbubba wrote: post #20
rahidz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also sports! This is a big one, as high school sports are the lifeblood of many a small town. Ending school early lets kids cram in their 2+ hours of bashing each other's heads in for the amusement and profit of locals before they do 2+ hours of homework.

When I was on the swim team, we often had practice in the morning before class. If school started later, morning practice would be even easier (as it was, we were waking up at something like 5am for that.) And competitions can easily be on Saturdays, they needn't be after school on a weekday.

Based on the wording of the post, I'm ~95% sure they meant exclusively football, baseball, and basketball.

Re: The impact of school shutdown on sleep in adolescents: a natural experiment

#22

Post by bigbubba »

ByteJockey wrote: post #21
bigbubba wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was on the swim team, we often had practice in the morning before class. If school started later, morning practice would be even easier (as it was, we were waking up at something like 5am for that.) And competitions can easily be on Saturdays, they needn't be after school on a weekday.

Based on the wording of the post, I'm ~95% sure they meant exclusively football, baseball, and basketball.

Those can be done the same way.

Re: The impact of school shutdown on sleep in adolescents: a natural experiment

#24

Post by swiley »

blurbleblurble wrote: post #23

The sadists among us simply wouldn't let this happen. We must be disciplined.

School being miserable, largely useless, and a huge time sink just makes sense to most Americans.

Teach kids formal logic/CS, assign reasonable homework, and have them get up at reasonable times? Nah!

Re: The impact of school shutdown on sleep in adolescents: a natural experiment

#25

Post by throwaway201103 »

lparm wrote: post #13
toyg wrote: post #9

I wonder if the youthful predilection for “sleep late, be active in the late evening” is some sort of evolutionary adaptation. Night raids, the young being tasked with the most annoying night-shifts... All pure speculation, but there must be something more than “kids are lazy and then they ‘grow’ out of it” - if anything because some people ( cough cough ) never actually do.

Actually your speculation is a good one. From the book Why we sleep, by Matthew Walker, it's reported that teenager's circadian rhythm is different from the one of their younger siblings. It's shifted progressively forward, so forward that it passes even the timing of adults. This is something wired in their brain and should be addressed when setting school times. Moreover, Walker also proposes a socio-evolutionary e…

> some people (cough cough) never actually do.

Guilty. Since WFH started I get up at about 12:00 - 13:00. This has been my natural unregulated pattern since I was about 14 (40 years ago). I have no set hours at work and basically zero supervision so it works.

Re: The impact of school shutdown on sleep in adolescents: a natural experiment

#26

Post by d33 »

lparm wrote: post #13
toyg wrote: post #9

I wonder if the youthful predilection for “sleep late, be active in the late evening” is some sort of evolutionary adaptation. Night raids, the young being tasked with the most annoying night-shifts... All pure speculation, but there must be something more than “kids are lazy and then they ‘grow’ out of it” - if anything because some people ( cough cough ) never actually do.

Actually your speculation is a good one. From the book Why we sleep, by Matthew Walker, it's reported that teenager's circadian rhythm is different from the one of their younger siblings. It's shifted progressively forward, so forward that it passes even the timing of adults. This is something wired in their brain and should be addressed when setting school times. Moreover, Walker also proposes a socio-evolutionary e…

I feel obliged to point out that "Why We Sleep" has been discredited:

https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/

Re: The impact of school shutdown on sleep in adolescents: a natural experiment

#27

Post by speedgoose »

rossdavidh wrote: post #8

So, I agree it's an interesting idea, and I think this small study could hopefully spur more conclusive ones, but... 1) N=45 2) based on "semi-structured phone interview" Neither of these is a deal-breaker, but what you'd really prefer is some sort of objective measure of sleep quantity, and how it impacted the person. Teenagers are, by and large, entirely aware that when adults ask them questions, they are likely to…

It's the old qualitative vs quantitative debate.

Interviewing 45 people can provide much more meaningful information than sending a survey to 1000 people. I'm not saying it's the case there, I'm not an expert in this domain. But 45 semi structured phones interviews is perfectly fine for a lot of research.

Re: The impact of school shutdown on sleep in adolescents: a natural experiment

#28

Post by sneakernets »

bigbubba wrote: post #17
discreditable wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also so students are at school before parents need to be at work. School is child care for a lot of parents.

If our society took a chill pill with all the 'stranger danger' fear mongering, we could simply let kids walk themselves to school, as was once common not too long ago.

Where do you live that schools are still that close? some schools are up to 15 miles away from students.

Re: The impact of school shutdown on sleep in adolescents: a natural experiment

#30

Post by throwaway_pdp09 »

rcar wrote: post #16
rossdavidh wrote: post #8

So, I agree it's an interesting idea, and I think this small study could hopefully spur more conclusive ones, but... 1) N=45 2) based on "semi-structured phone interview" Neither of these is a deal-breaker, but what you'd really prefer is some sort of objective measure of sleep quantity, and how it impacted the person. Teenagers are, by and large, entirely aware that when adults ask them questions, they are likely to…

Agreed with all points. I often find that these sorts of observational studies with weak methods that provide evidence for something the unblinded study participants would want to support (e.g., this study, observational studies of the effect of reduced workweek hours on productivity, many of the observational basic income studies) are really hard to evaluate fairly. It becomes easy to latch onto the conclusions when…

They provide dirty data but cheaply which can be used to prod a more rigorous study into life. So they do advance science. It isn't all sterile test tubes and lab coats, at the coal face it gets mucky, it has to.
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