Binge-watching may be fun, but it comes at a price, according to a recent study. The study, which is the first to link binge-watching in young adults with poorer sleep quality, more fatigue and increased insomnia, suggested that the mechanism explaining this relationship is increased cognitive alertness resulting from binge-watching.
Results show that more than 80% of young adults identified themselves as a binge-watcher, with 20.2% of them binge-watching at least a few times a week in the previous month. Those who identified as a binge-watcher reported more fatigue, more symptoms of insomnia, poorer sleep quality and greater alertness prior to going to sleep.
Further analysis found that binge-watchers had a 98% higher likelihood of having poor sleep quality compared with those who did not consider themselves to be a binge-watcher.
Lead author Liese Exelmans from the School for Mass Communication Research at the University of Leuven in Belgium noted, “We found that the more often young people binge-watch, the higher their cognitive pre-sleep arousal. That in turn negatively affected sleep quality, fatigue and insomnia.”
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