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Video games and sleep loss

blog.sleepio.com

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Re: Video games and sleep loss

#21

Post by arrrg »

Tichy wrote: post #2

In the article it says "they played a VIOLENT video game" (emphasis mine), yet the title only says "video games". For all we know, there might be sleep inducing video games. Apart from that I wonder how much of it is just "sitting in front of a screen with artificial light" - isn't there an issue with certain wavelengths of artificial light affecting Melatonin production, which might also affect sleep? All in all, th…

The abstract says “novel, violent, fast-paced video game”. I assume the actual paper would also name the game, but I cannot access it.

Re: Video games and sleep loss

#22

Post by arrrg »

gr3yh47 wrote: post #19

look, The conlusion here is ridiculous. When playing a violent video game, you will see a rise in adrenaline. I'd be willing to bet that if you participate in any adrenaline-heightened activity for 2.5 hours and then go right to bed, you'll see sleep loss. "Video games and sleep loss" what a crock.

Uhm, and? I’m confused and don’t really know what you want to say there. Maybe other activities also have the same result, but this study doesn’t seem to doubt that or claim otherwise.

Re: Video games and sleep loss

#23

Post by Cthulhu_ »

bobsy wrote: post #7

For me video games greatly affect my sleep. I was a teenager when I realized this and that was when I stopped playing games at around 9pm so my brain could reset and do something more relaxing. I don't think this is exclusive to games. I often have the same problem going to bed straight after coding. I still have things on the mind. I find the hardest game to sleep after is Starcraft. All that multitasking and thinki…

Well on the one hand it is brain activity - games and code excite the brain, and it can't simply click shut off and sleep.

On the other hand, it's light - the light from your computer screen goes straight into your eyes and to your brain, that tells you "IT'S STILL DAY". The brain / eyes need darkness / dusk to start producing melatonin, the sleep molecule.

So, turn off your screens, don't look at mobile phones, and if possible turn the TV off too, or at the very least dim them to the lowest brightness setting at least an hour before attempting to go to sleep, preferably two.

Software like f.lux will help too; studies show that white/blue lights will wake you up, while red, warm colors will make you sleepier. f.lux will make the screen a nice warm, soft red after sundown, mimicking natural sundown (while making it brighter / 'colder' during the day, keeping you awake while you work).

Re: Video games and sleep loss

#24

Post by bryanlarsen »

ekianjo wrote: post #15

Wow, that's ground-breaking research. Doing something that maintains your brain more active for a longer time before sleeping makes your sleep worse. Nobel prize level at least. I thought that the study would look at long-term effects of video games, at least.

"Wow, that's ground-breaking research."

Just because everybody believes it doesn't make it true. Every once in a while people do a study on something that's widely believed and it turns out that the wide belief was wrong. One example: sugar makes kids hyper.[1] Yet studies show that the two aren't well correlated.

1: http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=52...

Re: Video games and sleep loss

#26

Post by xyzzyb »

gr3yh47 wrote: post #19

look, The conlusion here is ridiculous. When playing a violent video game, you will see a rise in adrenaline. I'd be willing to bet that if you participate in any adrenaline-heightened activity for 2.5 hours and then go right to bed, you'll see sleep loss. "Video games and sleep loss" what a crock.

The study doesn't seem to be claiming that videogames have an exclusively bad influence on sleep, merely that they have an influence on sleep. Where's the crock?

Re: Video games and sleep loss

#27

Post by eumenides1 »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #24
ekianjo wrote: post #15

Wow, that's ground-breaking research. Doing something that maintains your brain more active for a longer time before sleeping makes your sleep worse. Nobel prize level at least. I thought that the study would look at long-term effects of video games, at least.

"Wow, that's ground-breaking research." Just because everybody believes it doesn't make it true. Every once in a while people do a study on something that's widely believed and it turns out that the wide belief was wrong. One example: sugar makes kids hyper.[1] Yet studies show that the two aren't well correlated. 1: http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=52...

I also agree that it's important to verify assumptions. I also think that the general comments in response to the article also indicate that a lot of us want to know more about the matter.

Is it the interactivity of the video game? Or is it light emitted by the monitor? Does surfing the web or watching TV engage us enough that it also cause similiar problems?

Lots of questions and lot of of limits to the study, but a good(I even dare say great) number of us are clearly going to be clearly affected by the outcome of a more detailed and exhaustive study.

I really hope to see more research in the area.

Re: Video games and sleep loss

#29

Post by VLM »

xyzzyb wrote: post #26
gr3yh47 wrote: post #19

look, The conlusion here is ridiculous. When playing a violent video game, you will see a rise in adrenaline. I'd be willing to bet that if you participate in any adrenaline-heightened activity for 2.5 hours and then go right to bed, you'll see sleep loss. "Video games and sleep loss" what a crock.

The study doesn't seem to be claiming that videogames have an exclusively bad influence on sleep, merely that they have an influence on sleep. Where's the crock?

The crock is extremely poor experiment design. Automatic F in an experimental psych class, or the stat classes I've taken, or quant chem analysis class, or I'd assume pretty much any hard science. So some random and completely uncontrolled combination of viewing violence, artificial light, novelty response to something new (assuming the game was new to them...), adrenaline (duh), finger/hand exercise, skin exposure to plastic, last but by no means least magic video game cooties has an effect on sleep.

There's a subtle difference between anecdote, data, and information... Due to poor experimental design, this is an semi-interesting anecdote, nothing more. Which is too bad.

Edited note: Its the timing thats bad. Doing a huge wide ranging experiment is perfectly valid iff you've already got tons of verified data and info of ALL the constituent parts and can subtract that statistical noise from the huge # of variables experiment. Its like giving higgs boson search raw data to Newton as a first experiment rather than starting with an apple off a tree. For example, medical sample of adrenaline level at bed time fed into formula to subtract out effect of excitation. Then medical experiment using scrambled video signal so the same melatonin effect based on raw light level and average color/brightness can be subtracted out of the sleep data. After subtracting out about 10 correction factors they might have real data, or even info, instead of anecdote.

Re: Video games and sleep loss

#30

Post by xyzzyb »

VLM wrote: post #29
xyzzyb wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The study doesn't seem to be claiming that videogames have an exclusively bad influence on sleep, merely that they have an influence on sleep. Where's the crock?

The crock is extremely poor experiment design. Automatic F in an experimental psych class, or the stat classes I've taken, or quant chem analysis class, or I'd assume pretty much any hard science. So some random and completely uncontrolled combination of viewing violence, artificial light, novelty response to something new (assuming the game was new to them...), adrenaline (duh), finger/hand exercise, skin exposure t…

Yes, but again: they aren't stating that it's some property exclusive to videogames that affect sleep but something about playing videogames (including all side effects) can have an affect on the quality of sleep.
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