Not a week goes by in which some new study details the after affect that gaming has one one's brain or body, either positive or negative. Usually the focus is on violent behavior, but this latest one is about sleeping habits.
According to Game Politics, sleep researchers at Flinders University in Australia once concluded that playing games before going to bed was no different than watching a movie, at least for a normal teenage males. But that was two years ago, and since then, they have revised their findings.
Now it turns out, "prolonged gaming" before sleep time is disruptive to getting a good night's rest, which is essential for any young person.
The study had 17 participants play what they classified as a "fast-paced, violent video game" for 50-150 minutes before bedtime. The subjects had their sleep and heart-rate readings monitored. The end result was a 27 minute loss of total sleep time, among those who played the most. According to Dr. Michael Gradisar, the child sleep psychologist who oversaw the study:
While they went to bed at their regular bedtime, the adolescents' still experienced significant sleep disruptions caused by frequent awakenings throughout the night… Sleep is made up of many different stages and the REM sleep, also known as the dreaming sleep, was reduced by 12 minutes among the teens who played for over two hours.
Why is this important? Well, the doctor explains this as well:
This may not seem like a significant reduction but REM plays an important part in helping us remember content we learnt that day so for adolescents in their final years of school who are revising for exams, winding down at night with a video game might not be the best idea.
Meanwhile, those who only played for 50 minutes had no trouble falling or staying asleep. This might seem like common knowledge; naturally playing a game for a long time, especially one that is supremely engaging and taxing, and right before bedtime, is not going to result in the best rest possible.
But hey, such studies are essential fodder when law makers and like parties want to paint video games in a negative light. At least it's yet another study about how games turn kids into murders in training, right?
