Does texting affect sleeping or the emotional well being of a person? A latest study conducted by a group of researchers from Washington University and Lee shows sleeping especially among college students to be inversely related to the amount of time spent texting every day.
Heavy texters - those who send more than 100 messages a day - are most likely to suffer from sleep problems and feel burnt out, said Karla Murdock, head of the research team, reports Daily News.
Murdock interviewed over 83 under graduate students on the number of texts they send out or receive on a daily basis, how it affects their school performance and if it causes any stress.
American College Health Association numbers showed that 40 percent of the students felt fully rested only two days out of a week. Seventy percent reported getting less than eight hours of sleep every day.
The people who are more stressed out are relatively more addicted toward texting in order to keep their minds engaged; resulting in less amount of sleep, reveals the study.
Sleep is interrupted by phone notifications that wakes people up and peer pressure to reply back instantaneously, no matter at what point of time.
In fact, texting is more prevalent among those people who are not so verbally active. Texting is a task and a chore and makes people feel overburdened, which adds to the stress. "If you're texting a lot, that's actually work. It takes time," Murdock said. "If you're feeling overloaded and also texting a lot, the texting might be adding to your burden."
Smartphone addiction with new and varied online texting platforms are adding to the problem. The United States is overrun by sleeping disorders, which in some cases are caused by over usage of the phone. There are cases of people suffering from sleeping texts, where they keep on texting while asleep but don't remember the fact the next morning, reveals a recent post on Huffington Post.
The findings are published in the Psychology Of Popular Media Culture.
