1. Socializing and Sleep Deprivation Among College Students
Yonca Bartu, Josh Cummings, Shelby Livingstone, Anna Lopez, and Chase Lesane-Brown, Ph.D.
Method
Results
Discussion
Background
Participants
41 Rice undergraduate students (29 females, 12 males) between 18 and 22 years old.
Material
Online Qualtrics survey regarding social activities and sleep patterns for an average week from Monday to Sunday.
For each weekday, participants reported:
Hours of sleep
Hours spent on the following social activities:
No activities
Individual activities
Group activities
Hypothesis 1: Not supported. There was no statistically significant relationship between hours of sleep and socializing activities (r = -.12, p = .22) .
Hypothesis 2: Not supported:
Sleep was positively associated with individual activities (r = .40, p <.01). Sleep was not associated with no activities (r = -.23, p=.14) and group activities (r = -.00, p=.98).
College students (aged 18-30) do not achieve the minimum 8 hours of sleep recommended by the National Sleep Foundation (2018; Carter, 2017).
Research suggests that sleep deprivation is impacted by social activities such as interactions between friends in college and at home (Adams, 2016).
The current study will provide important insight into what kinds of social activities may lead to sleep deprivation among college students.
When averaging the results of Figure 1, an average of 57% of students said they received 7-9 hours per night. This leads us to conclude that most college students achieved the recommended minimum 8 hours of sleep per night.
There was no relationship between average hours of sleep and time spent on group activities or no activity.
There was a significant positive correlation for individual activity contrary to what we predicted.
Predictions 1
Hypothesis 1: Across a week, the average hours of sleep is negatively related to time spent on social activities.
Hypothesis 2: The relationship between sleep and social activities will be different depending on the nature of the social activity. Specifically, group activities (e.g., hanging out with friends) will have the strongest negative relationship, followed by individual activities (e.g., browsing social media) and no activities (e.g., doing homework alone).
Figure 3. Average number of hours spent on social activities throughout the week. 1
References
Adams, S. K., Williford, D. N., Vaccaro, A., Kisler, T. S., Francis, A., & Newman, B. (2016). The young and
the restless: Socializing trumps sleep, fear of missing out, and technological distractions in first-year
college students. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth,22(3),
Carter, B., Chopak-Foss, J., & Punungwe, F. B. (2017). An analysis of the sleep quality of undergraduate
students. College Student Journal, 50(3),
National Sleep Foundation Recommends New Sleep Times. (n.d.). Retrieved April 10, 2018, from
Figure 1. Percentage of hours of sleep that participants reported by week night. Most participants reported 7-9 hours of sleep throughout the week.
Figure 2. The average number of hours of sleep per week night. Participants reported the most sleep on Friday and Saturday nights.