Navigating Screens and Colors for Teenage Well-Being

By: Samuel Yang

With the advent of innovative technology and widespread smartphones, screens have been a huge worry from parents around the globe on their impact on their children. Teenagers have been spending an increasing amount of time engaging with digital devices for education, entertainment, and more, it is essential to understand the potential consequences of screens on teenage health, growth, and sleep. Sleep is a critical factor in growth in humans. Without sleep, immune systems are weakened, irritability increases, and minimized cognitive function. According to News in Health, “sleep helps prepare your brain to learn, remember, and create”, as well as removing toxic proteins linked with Alzheimer’s disease “ twice as fast from the brain during sleep” (NIH). As a result, it is all the more important for teenagers, at the period of their lives with the most growth, to go through the cycles of sleep. However, one huge impediment is the blue light, or more specifically, the short-wavelength wavelength light emitted from technology technologies that are affecting sleep. Either way, this light can severely affect teenagers’ sleep. According to nutritional epidemiologist Dr. Erica Jansen, chronic exposure to inadequate sleep “is associated with depression, anxiety, and other conditions”, as well as an increase in “difficult behaviors, lower capacity to learn and retain information, and a propensity for poor eating patterns and weight gain”

As part of the demographic, I am directly impacted by the positive and negative effects of screens. As a junior in high school, I have stayed up countless nights without being aware of certain aspects of screens that are affecting my sleep, growth, and performance. Being a victim of the constant scrolling gives me a little pump of dopamine, this very rush has kept me from reaching my fullest performance and sleep in the midst of reaching this digital deluge. As a result, I have conducted research as an intern at ‘Guides of Perfection’ to ensure that you don’t fall into the same trap that I did. Through this paper, I hope to provide insights into the unconscious blue light that has been keeping teenagers up, techniques to minimize screen time, and solutions to help students and teenagers develop healthy habits that will help them reach their fullest potential.

• Screen Time Tracking and Management Apps: There are downloadable apps that allow users to track screen time across all applications. Settings that block usage in frequently used apps can be crucial. Apps are especially important as they give users a better insight to which apps they should block and why. As a result, whether it be gaming, social media, or other sites, users know what is affecting their sleep and screen time

• Screen-Free Times: Having a designated time without any screens whatsoever (such as an hour before sleep, an hour after sleep, or study time) can massively help with habits and reaching optimal sleep. Using screen-free time zones, users can create a buffer before and after sleep to better improve sleep quality. Using this technique, having less access to phones a few hours before sleep can reduce its arousing effects, and less access after sleep can break the habit of always picking up the phone.

• Using “Night Mode” on screens can reduce exposure to blue light, minimizing disruptions in sleep patterns

Using the night mode, the arousing stimuli are less affecting, giving users more sleep quality and less disruptions. Additionally, studies supporting blue light glasses are either “not enough evidence to support the potential benefits” or “ too small to offer generalizable conclusions”. Despite the common misconception, scientists recommend simply dimming the light with dark mode or “avoiding devices for 2–3 hours before bedtime”. Harvard researchers also recommend exposing yourself to bright sunlight during the way to boost your ability to sleep at night.

• Education and Awareness Campaigns: Increasing awareness can make this information widespread, with more people talking about potential risks of screen time and blue light during sleep. By spreading awareness, teenagers can now spend more time sleeping and improving their quality of sleep, as well as ensuring that they know of blue light and how they can minimize its effects.

In all, the impact of technology has done both good and bad. With spreading awareness of blue light and its negative effects, users can now implement helpful techniques to help mitigate this, resulting in better sleep quality and performance. Through setting simple habits throughout the day such as having screen time tracking apps, screen-free zones, and spreading awareness, you as the reader have the power to use your voice for good. Through consistency and perseverance, these small things can have an unsurmountable effect on your life. No matter how daunting it may seem at first, you can do it. I pinky promise.