Topic: Health
Title: Kids and Sleep through History
Author: Bonnie Richman
Publication: CNN
Feb 13, 2 012
Length: 732
Researchers from the University of South Australia investigated old studies about sleep recommendations and actual hours of sleep in teens. They examined 300 such studies, dating from 1897 to 2009. They found that over the years, both recommended and actual sleep times have declined by about .7 minutes per year, and a little over an hour since 1897. Additionally, kids have been getting about 40 minutes less of sleep than recommended throughout the past century.
Sleep recommendations are so variable because there is little way to determine how much sleep someone actually needs. 20% of teens say they feel drowsy during the day, and 60% of teens say they would like more sleep, so it is likely that kids do need more sleep. The amount, however, is difficult to determine. Possible explanations for the change in the amount of sleep kids get is new technologies: TV, computers, and the internet offer nighttime distractions.
Additionally, amounts of sleep vary between countries and cultures. For example, it is accepted that Japanese kids will sleep in class because they were up studying. Australian kids sleep almost an hour more than American kids, who sleep less than nearly any other demographic.
In summation: Don't trust sleep experts.
The topic its very touching, because we as teenagers feel the lack of sleep in our daily lifes.
ReplyDeleteIn places like school, house, hang out places or even when we are taking a shower on the morning.
Personally i think that the lack of sleep its not only technologies fault, also its that nowadays an average teenager spent more hours studying, doing sports and killing time than before.