Roughly three out of four American adolescents are now failing to get the recommended eight hours of sleep per night, according to a new report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The study, which analyzed data from nearly 121,000 high school students, found that insufficient sleep increased by 8% between 2007 and 2023. This trend was largely driven by a significant rise in teenagers getting “very short sleep” of five hours or less, a demographic that swelled from 15.8% to 23.0% over the same period.
In a finding that surprised researchers, the rise in sleep loss did not appear to be directly linked to screen time, social media use, or mental health symptoms.
Tanner Bommersbach, a researcher involved in the study, noted that teens with very little screen time actually saw a greater increase in insufficient sleep compared to those with heavy screen use.
“Regardless of mental health symptoms, substance use, how many hours a day they’re watching TV or they’re on social media, we saw widespread increases in insufficient sleep across the population,” Bommersbach told NPR.
The data showed that while sleep deprivation is increasing across all ages, sexes, and ethnicities, Black students reported a greater increase in insufficient sleep compared to their white peers.
Researchers speculate that the overall surge in sleep deprivation may be tied to earlier school start times, excessive extracurricular demands, and a decrease in parental monitoring. Anita Shelgikar, a neurologist at the University of Michigan and president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, characterized the situation as a national “epidemic of adolescent sleep deprivation.”
Health experts warn that the lack of rest is critical because sleep is essential for adolescent brain development and emotional regulation. To combat the trend, Shelgikar advocates for incorporating sleep health education into school curricula and delaying school start times to align with adolescent biological clocks.
Shelgikar also encouraged a focus on “sleep hygiene,” such as exposure to bright outdoor light in the morning to set circadian rhythms and maintaining cool, dark sleeping environments.
“This is certainly a call to action,” Shelgikar said, noting that researchers have found that later school start times lead to better academic performance and improved sleep for teenagers.