Video games and sleep loss
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Video games and sleep loss
1–10 of 34 posts
Re: Video games and sleep loss
#2In 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, the study does not sound very trustworthy to me. Because of the subject, I have no doubt it will picked up by all the newspapers and TV talk shows, though.
Re: Video games and sleep loss
#3That seems like a rather small sample size, both in number of people involved and the fact that it the results seem to be based on only a couple of points. (what's the variation in the sleep patterns normally? What about other factors that may affect their sleeping patterns? e.g. previous nights' sleep, exposure to other media content while not at the sleep lab, etc.)
I'm genuinely interested. I do understand that this may be a basis for further study but how much can we really take from this study to encourage further research?
Re: Video games and sleep loss
#4From personal experience this is not isolated to gaming. As a gamer and coder whenever I spend 2+ hours just before sleep on gaming, heavy coding, research I tend to get a bad sleep. I guess during coding / research it's because my mind stuck with certain problems (hence eureka moments in the morning). Also I look forward to the next morning so I can try out all these new ideas (which always causes me to wake earlier).
Right after gaming or a mind stimulating movie (i.e. Fight Club) again my mind is too busy with the stuff so sleep quality is worse than general.
For the last 4-5 years I consciously try to put a buffer between all these active engagements and my sleep by watching a sitcom or just doing light reading in between.
Re: Video games and sleep loss
#5That seems like a rather small sample size, both in number of people involved and the fact that it the results seem to be based on only a couple of points. (what's the variation in the sleep patterns normally? What about other factors that may affect their sleeping patterns? e.g. previous nights' sleep, exposure to other media content while not at the sleep lab, etc.) I'm genuinely interested. I do understand that th…
I agree it is a small sample - although not uncommon for psychology studies.
I'm going to see if Dr Kyle (who wrote the post) can hop on here to give us his view.
Re: Video games and sleep loss
#6In 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…
Yes blue light inhibits melatonin release, although to my knowledge there is still very little reliable research on in-situ, naturalistic use of devices on sleep.
Agreed that this is a small sample; however the use of both subjective and objective measures is a step forward.
Re: Video games and sleep loss
#7For 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 thinking about a silly loss. Can take 30-40 minutes to get to sleep if I jump into bed directly after playing a game.
Did anyone use to play Ultima Online? Surely you had the recurrent dream of being dead and struggling to find your corpse? "Must find corpse! Can't lose stuff!" I would then wake up and remember I signed out at Brit bank, relax and go back to sleep. I had issues.
Re: Video games and sleep loss
#8The article lacks details over what type of experience the player had when playing, slightly rendering any conclusions useless until further studies.
Playing a computer game can be a spectrum of experiences, some that are very distant related to each other. For example, is the game that the person playing a single player game or multiplayer? strategy or action? The excitement level of doing some EVE trading a few hours before sleep, mining some ore in WoW, playing a tournament in starcraft, discussing politics in a facebook "game", playing a puzzle game like portal, playing an unforgiving game like nethack (and dieing), playing an fast reaction game like insert last released fps game here, are all, all, very different in the amount of excitement received.
What I would like to see, is the same study but with a game that’s basically a rather boring experience, but common with gamers. MMO Farming, practice matches vs AI, trading, windows card games and so on. That would allow us to separate the act of playing a video game, from the act of doing something exciting before sleeping.
Re: Video games and sleep loss
#9I thought it was the blue light suppressing the melatonin and circadian rhythm? Isn't that kind of the premise behind f.lux?
Re: Video games and sleep loss
#10Playing an hour or so of WOW helps me sleep better. This way, I remain in a relaxed/bored gaming mode when I hit the pillow. Otherwise, I would start thinking about work instead and become wild awake.