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For years, sleep experts have been urging people to avoid screen time before bed, warning that it can interfere with a quality night’s sleep. That includes screens of any kind – the thinking being that the blue light emitted from them can interfere with production of melatonin, the hormone that tells our brains when it’s time to sleep.
But what if the real culprit is the type of screen time we’re consuming, rather than the screens themselves? A growing body of research suggests that how often people use social media before bed – and how engaged they are in it – matters more than how long they are on screens as a whole when it comes to getting restful sleep.
Social psychologist and sleep researcher Brian N. Chin, from Trinity College, explains that emotionally stimulating content can lead to greater arousal that delays the onset of sleep. Small behavioral changes, such as avoiding doomscrolling and leaving your phone outside your bedroom at night, can help you get more sleep, he writes.
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Amanda Mascarelli
Senior Health and Medicine Editor
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Social media use before bedtime can be stimulating in ways that screen time alone is not.
Adam Hester/Tetra Images via Getty Images
Brian N. Chin, Trinity College
Research suggests that how often people check social media − and how emotionally engaged they are with it − can influence sleep even more than how much time they spend online.
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Economy + Business
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Gregory H. Shill, University of Iowa
Nearly every major American social media platform is ruled by a single founder with near-total control, thanks to a relatively new corporate share structure.
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Kaitlyn DeGhetto, University of Dayton; Zachary Russell, Xavier University
People’s perceptions of risk shape where businesses choose to locate, new research suggests. Interestingly, conservatives and liberals view risk very differently.
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John Lowrey, Northeastern University; Timothy Richards, Arizona State University; Zachariah Rutledge, Michigan State University
At a time when California’s farm operators are struggling to hire enough people, providing better benefits could attract more workers who are citizens or have legal immigration status.
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Science + Technology
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Ambuj Tewari, University of Michigan
Computing pioneer Alan Turing suggested training machines with rewards and punishments. Two computer scientists put the idea into practice in the 1980s and set the stage for the likes of ChatGPT.
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Politics + Society
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Calvin Schermerhorn, Arizona State University
Discrimination has made it harder for Black people in the Los Angeles area to buy and keep their homes. Did it also make them more fire-prone when Altadena burned?
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Ethics + Religion
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Mordechai Gordon, Quinnipiac University
German philosopher Paul Tillich’s writings about affirming oneself in the face of anxiety, repression and meaninglessness ring as true today as in the 1950s.
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Environment + Energy
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Ari Caramanica, Vanderbilt University
Ancient practices hold important lessons for farmers facing drying lands, but they were often more complex than modern societies realize. Glacier loss adds to the challenge today.
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International
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Lucy Durán, SOAS, University of London
The famous blind couple, Amadou & Mariam, helped take Mali’s rich musical traditions to a new global audience.
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Arts + Culture
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Emma Knowles, Australian Catholic University
Challenging word-based games are not a modern invention. In early medieval England there was a strong appetite for word puzzles.
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From the archive️
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Amal Noureldin, Texas A&M University
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Monday praised Utah’s move to ban the addition of fluoride to the water supply. In this article from December of last year, a clinical professor expert in dentistry explains the science and history of fluoridation.
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