Most students already suspect the phone is why they're tired. A Hopelab poll released in September found that about half of 13 to 24 year olds who doomscroll say they lose more than an hour of sleep on the nights they do it. Four new studies on social media and sleep in college students back up the general idea, though the details are messier and more useful than the usual "phones ruin sleep" line.
The short version: heavier social media use predicts worse sleep, mostly by pushing bedtime later. When one team measured phone use directly, total minutes on social apps had no link to sleep. TikTok was the exception. Another team found people slept worse after long sessions of scrolling before bed and didn't notice.
That points toward a different fix than a strict midnight phone ban: keep an eye on your daily habit and make the endless video feeds harder to reach.
The short answer on social media and sleep in college students
- Probably yes, modestly. The effects are small, and most of the samples are small or self-reported.
- The most consistent harm is a later bedtime, which means less sleep before a 9 a.m. lecture.
- Your overall daily use seems to matter more than what you do in the last hour.
- Endless video feeds look worse than messaging, based on one small study.
- You may not feel the damage, so how rested you feel is a poor guide.
A year of first-years: more scrolling, then worse sleep, then worse health
Researchers at George Mason University followed 349 first-year students aged 18 to 24, surveying them in August 2019, February 2020 and August 2020. Students who used more social media at the start of the year reported worse sleep quality six months later. Worse sleep then predicted worse self-rated health six months after that.
The authors say it's the first study to suggest sleep is one of the links between social media and how healthy students feel. The surprise was that nighttime use on its own wasn't tied to worse sleep. Overall use was.
There are real caveats. Everything was self-reported, students dropped out along the way, and the data straddle the start of COVID. Following people over time is stronger than a one-off snapshot, but it still falls short of proving cause. The authors suggest time limits and phone-free zones, and they stop short of telling anyone to quit.
When researchers measured phones, only TikTok stood out
Most sleep research asks people to estimate their own screen time, and people are bad at that. A Curtin University team gave 62 undergraduates wrist sensors to track sleep for 14 days and logged their time on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and Snapchat straight from their phones.
Total daily social media time had no link to how long students slept, how fast they fell asleep, how efficiently they slept or when they went to bed. That held when comparing students with each other, and when comparing one student's heavy days with their light ones.
Looking at weekdays only, a student's heavier TikTok days also went with shorter sleep. Snapchat, the most chat-heavy app in the set, went with falling asleep slightly faster. The authors couldn't explain that one, so treat it as a curiosity.
This is a small group of students taking part for course credit, the data are from 2021, and the study didn't record what time of day people used their apps. Its main message is that self-report studies may overstate the effect. It also hints that the type of feed matters more than raw minutes. If short video is your main sinkhole, we've written about what helped 3,857 students cut back.
You can sleep worse after scrolling and still feel rested
A University of Salzburg study published this summer tracked 23 healthy males aged 14 to 25 for two weeks. An app logged their social media use in the two hours before lights out, and their sleep was measured with wrist sensors and daily diaries.
More scrolling before bed went with lower sleep efficiency and a trend toward shorter sleep. On weekends it also went with more awakenings and more broken sleep. The participants, meanwhile, reported sleeping more deeply after the nights they scrolled more.
The study is tiny, male only and includes teenagers, so it proves nothing by itself. What it suggests is still worth knowing: your sense of how well you slept can miss what's actually happening.
Doomscrolling before bed and the hour you lose
In the Hopelab and Data for Progress poll, 88% of 13 to 24 year olds said they doomscroll and 32% do it daily or more. About two-thirds had doomscrolled in their free time or before bed in the previous two weeks.
Another 25% said they lose 30 to 60 minutes, and 18% said 15 to 30. These are people's own estimates from a poll released by an advocacy group, so read them as how young people experience it rather than as measured sleep loss.
Adults say something similar. In an American Academy of Sleep Medicine poll of 2,007 US adults, 38% said reading news on a phone or tablet before bed made their sleep worse, and only 14% never use devices for news at bedtime.
Six in ten young people in the Hopelab poll said doomscrolling leaves them anxious, exhausted, overwhelmed, angry or hopeless (we looked at what 44 studies say about doomscrolling and anxiety). Yet 76% said it keeps them informed and 60% said it moves them to act. That's why the authors argue against simply telling young people to log off.
Blue light is the weakest part of the story
None of these studies tested light. The George Mason team notes that earlier research on nighttime phone use is mixed, and that any effect may depend on factors such as light exposure. The finding that keeps turning up is plainer: scrolling eats time and pushes bedtime later.
Being tired may make you scroll more
One study covered by PsyPost found that daytime sleepiness linked insomnia symptoms to problematic short-video use in students. It was a single snapshot, so it can't show which comes first. The loop is easy to picture, though: you're too tired to do anything else, so you watch, and then you sleep late again. A SLEEP 2026 abstract on teens found a related pattern, with evening phone use spilling into longer use later the same night.
How to stop scrolling at night without going offline
- 01Watch the daily total
George Mason linked overall use to worse sleep, so a daily time limit may help more than a bedtime rule alone.
- 02Cut the endless feeds first
closing Reels, Shorts and the For You page while keeping chats open fits the Curtin pattern, though it rests on one small study.
- 03Pick a bedtime and defend it
a later bedtime is the most consistent harm across these studies, so make lights out the fixed point of your evening.
- 04Add friction at night
Hopelab suggests apps that delay or block specific apps to interrupt the reflex to open them.
- 05Swap the scroll for something
Hopelab suggests fiction with mostly positive themes or mindfulness in the evening, plus exercise during the day.
- 06Get the news quickly, then stop
one trusted summary keeps you informed without an hour of algorithm-picked bad news.
- Heavier social media use predicts worse sleep months later, though the effects are modest.
- In the one study that measured phone use directly, TikTok went with later bedtimes while total minutes showed no link.
- You may not feel the disruption, so judge by your bedtime and daytime alertness.
- Trimming endless video feeds and protecting a set bedtime fits the evidence better than quitting everything.
Questions people ask
Does social media affect sleep in college students?
Probably, modestly. A George Mason study of 349 first-year students found more social media use predicted worse sleep six months later, though the data were self-reported and show association rather than cause.
Is TikTok worse for sleep than other apps?
In one small Curtin University study that measured phone use, each extra daily hour of TikTok went with a bedtime about 26 minutes later, while total social media time had no link to sleep. It's one study of 62 students, so treat it as a hint.
How much sleep does doomscrolling cost?
In a 2026 Hopelab poll, about half of young doomscrollers said they lose more than an hour of sleep on nights they doomscroll. These are self-reported estimates, not measured sleep.
Is it blue light or the content that keeps you awake?
None of the new studies tested light, and earlier research on nighttime phone use is mixed. The most consistent finding is that scrolling pushes bedtime later and eats into sleep time.
Can I keep texting friends at night without wrecking my sleep?
The evidence suggests messaging is less of a problem than endless video feeds. In the Curtin study, Snapchat use wasn't linked to worse sleep, while TikTok went with later bedtimes.
Sources
- More social media use linked to poorer sleep and self-rated health among college students George Mason University College of Public Health · 2026-09-21
- Social Media Use, Sleep Quality, and Self-Rated Health Among First-Year Students at George Mason University Before and After the COVID-19 Pandemic Public Health Reports · 2026
- Beyond self-report: The relationship between daily social media use and sleep in university students British Journal of Health Psychology · 2026-07-13
- Effects of Pre-Bedtime Social Media Use on Objective and Subjective Sleep Quality in Adolescents and Young Adults Journal of Sleep Research · 2026-07
- Informed, Inspired, and Exhausted: Doomscrolling Negative Content and Well-being Among Young People Aged 13-24 Hopelab · 2026-09-17
- Hopelab and Data for Progress doomscrolling poll (full report) Hopelab and Data for Progress · 2026-09-17
- Doomscrolling Affecting Many Americans' Sleep, Poll Finds HealthDay via Powers Health · 2026-02-25
- Bedtime smartphone use linked to overnight phone activity in teens SLEEP 2026 (AASM and Sleep Research Society) · 2026-06-04
- How daylight exhaustion secretly fuels endless nighttime scrolling PsyPost · 2026-05