Mobile phone alerts that interrupt our sleep may have serious knock-on effects for our waking lives, leaving us more prone to car accidents, mistakes at work and poor mental health.
One in five Australians is being woken by texts and social media alerts, or waking up to send them multiple times a week, new research suggests. For one in 20, it’s every night.
When that alert sounds, “the temptation to look is enormous”, lead researcher Sarah Appleton at Flinders University’s Adelaide Institute of Sleep Health warned.
“This is a really difficult problem to deal with because it’s so pervasive and ingrained in our population,” she said.
The ‘frightening’ effects of the phone messages waking us at night | @Kaubo https://t.co/JJ9ApjT93i
— The Sydney Morning Herald (@smh) October 16, 2019