The average daily time students spend on social media is around 4.5 to 5 hours.
The average amount of sleep students get is about 6 to 7 hours.
Social media, homework, and sports all contribute to a student’s sleep schedule and chronic sleep deprivation. But, social media is arguably the part of a teenager’s life that has the biggest effect, and almost 95% of teens in the U.S. use or participate in social media.
Riley Glibowski, a 9th grader at New Providence High School, who participates in many sports including volleyball and softball recently downloaded social media platforms. She gets about 8 hours of sleep on the weekdays, from 10 pm to 6 am. Her social media intake is less than the average hours for teenagers: “On the weekdays, I probably spend, like, an hour a day. On the weekends, I probably spend, like, two hours a day.”
After softball, Glibowski finds herself taking a little break on her phone for about 30 minutes before doing her homework. Glibowski does think she gets slightly off track before doing her homework, but not much. “When I procrastinate, I don’t do my homework till later, and then I don’t go to bed till later.”
On the weekends, Glibowski averages 9 hours of sleep, going to bed later than on weekdays: “I’ll go on my phone before bed and, like, scroll on TikTok.”
Another NPHS freshman, Anissa Tennekoon, who does club and school swim, said her afternoons are fairly simple, and include catching up on sleep: “When I get home from school. I’m just really tired, so I have to take my nap. Then I go to [swim] practice, and then when I get home, I finish up any homework I didn’t already do.”
On school nights, Tennekoon goes to bed at 11pm and wakes up at 6am, getting about 7 hours of sleep.
It seems that on weekdays, social media does not really affect Tennekoon’s sleep schedule, but the weekend is different. She usually goes to bed at 1am on weekends, and wakes up at 10am. Tennekoon often finds herself scrolling on her phone in her bed late at night on Fridays and Saturdays.
“I feel like, on the weekend, it does impact my sleep schedule,” she said.
Overall for Tennekoon, her swim hours and homework have a bigger impact on her sleep schedule than the 2 hours a day she spends on social media.
Lastly, 9th grader Riley Orband experiences a slightly different schedule. She does New Providence cheer and tumbling classes, and after that, “I usually eat dinner and then go on my phone, and I’ll do my homework after I shower.”
Orband finds herself doing homework later in the night, and has an average screen time on the weekdays of 3-4 hours per day.
On school nights, Orband goes to bed at 10 pm, and wakes up at 6 am. She does think social media affects her because she often procrastinates on her homework and goes on her phone before getting her work done. She believes if she didn’t have an average screen time on the weekdays of 3-4 hours, or didn’t have social media at all, she would get her work done a lot faster and go to bed earlier.
On weekends, Orband spends her free time on her phone a lot, going on social media for about 5-6 hours per day. She explains that she gets about the same amount of sleep on the weekends and weekdays. She stays up late on her phone on weekends, and but she also gets up later.