Author: admin

If you’re reading this in bed on your phone, you’re not alone. Lots of people use their phones before and beyond bedtime, especially young adults and teens.

Still, you might want to call it a night soon (after you finish reading this, of course). Extended screen time before bed – or in bed – is widely suspected to disrupt sleep, although key details about the dynamic remain unclear.

In a new study, researchers tried to shed more light on the issue, using data from a large survey of 45,202 university students in Norway.

Screen time in bed is associated with 59 percent higher odds of insomnia, the study found, leading to 24 fewer minutes of total sleep per night.

But people use screens in many ways, some of which may affect sleep more than others. Would TV sabotage your slumber as much as social media?

Some previous studies suggest social media is especially bad for sleep, even more than other types of screen time. Yet little research has directly compared various screen-based activities and their impact on sleep.

Most studies that have done so focused on teenagers, the researchers note.

The new study features a slightly older demographic, ranging in age from 18 to 28, and draws from vast data collected for the Students’ Health and Well-being Study 2022, a nationally representative study of Norwegian students.

The survey contains demographic information about students as well as several health and lifestyle factors, including screen use and sleep.

“Sleep problems are highly prevalent among students and have significant implications for mental health, academic performance, and overall well-being, but previous studies have primarily focused on adolescents,” says Gunnhild Johnsen Hjetland, clinical psychologist at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.

“Given the widespread use of screens in bed, we aimed to explore the relationship between different screen activities and sleep patterns,” she says. “We expected that social media use might be more strongly associated with poorer sleep, given its interactive nature and potential for emotional stimulation.”

According to the findings, however, social media use was no more of a hindrance to sleep than other screen-based activities.

“The type of screen activity does not appear to matter as much as the overall time spent using screens in bed,” Hjetland says.

“We found no significant differences between social media and other screen activities, suggesting that screen use itself is the key factor in sleep disruption – likely due to time displacement, where screen use delays sleep by taking up time that would otherwise be spent resting.”

Participants reported whether they used any electronic media in bed, and for how long. They specified if they were watching movies or TV, checking social media, browsing the internet, listening to audio, gaming, or reading study-related content.

The researchers grouped these into three broader categories: just social media, no social media, or social media plus other screen-based activities.

In addition, participants reported their bedtimes and rising times, how long it took them to fall asleep, how often they struggled to fall or stay asleep, how often they felt sleepy during the day, and duration of their sleep troubles.

Those reporting more post-bedtime screen time were much more likely to report symptoms of insomnia, the study found.

The specific activity seemed to matter less than total screen time, suggesting screen use might curtail sleep by displacing rest rather than boosting wakefulness.

There are some notable caveats. The sample size is large, for example, yet lacks the cultural diversity to make the findings broadly generalizable.

The study also grouped many screen-based activities together, obscuring possible nuance in narrower categories.

And while the study shows correlation, it can’t reveal causality. People checking social media actually reported better sleep overall, but the influence could go either way.

“Another interpretation is that social media use is not the preferred activity for students who struggle the most with their sleep,” the researchers write.

Some students use technology as a sleep aid, and may choose activities commonly considered more calming, like watching a movie or listening to music instead of doomscrolling.

“If you struggle with sleep and suspect that screen time may be a factor, try to reduce screen use in bed, ideally stopping at least 30 to 60 minutes before sleep,” Hjetland says. “If you do use screens, consider disabling notifications to minimize disruptions during the night.”

When a pregnant woman had her blood sampled back in 1972, doctors discovered it was mysteriously missing a surface molecule found on all other known red blood cells at the time.

After 50 years, this strange molecular absence finally led to researchers from the UK and Israel describing a new blood group system in humans. In 2024, the team published their paper on the discovery.

“It represents a huge achievement, and the culmination of a long team effort, to finally establish this new blood group system and be able to offer the best care to rare, but important, patients,” UK National Health Service hematologist Louise Tilley said last September, after nearly 20 years of personally researching this bloody quirk.

While we’re all more familiar with the ABO blood group system and the Rh factor (that’s the plus or minus part), humans actually have many different blood group systems based on the wide variety of cell-surface proteins and sugars that coat our blood cells.

Our bodies use these antigen molecules, amongst their other purposes, as identification markers to separate ‘self’ from potentially harmful not-selves.

If these markers do not match up when receiving a blood transfusion, this life-saving tactic can cause reactions or even end up being fatal.

Most major blood groups were identified early in the 20th century. Many discovered since, like the Er blood system first described by researchers in 2022, only impact a small number of people. This is also the case for the new blood group.

Previous research found more than 99.9 percent of people have the AnWj antigen that was missing from the 1972 patient’s blood. This antigen lives on a myelin and lymphocyte protein, leading the researchers to call the newly described system the MAL blood group.

When someone has a mutated version of both copies of their MAL genes, they end up with an AnWj-negative blood type, like the pregnant patient. Tilley and team identified three patients with the rare blood type that didn’t have this mutation, suggesting that sometimes blood disorders can also cause the antigen to be suppressed.

“MAL is a very small protein with some interesting properties which made it difficult to identify and meant we needed to pursue multiple lines of investigation to accumulate the proof we needed to establish this blood group system,” explained University of the West of England cell biologist Tim Satchwell.

To determine they had the correct gene, after decades of research, the team inserted the normal MAL gene into blood cells that were AnWj-negative. This effectively delivered the AnWj antigen to those cells.

The MAL protein is known to play a vital role in keeping cell membranes stable and aiding in cell transport. What’s more, previous research found that the AnWj isn’t actually present in newborn babies but appears soon after birth.

Interestingly, all the AnWj-negative patients included in the study shared the same mutation. However, no other cell abnormalities or diseases were found to be associated with this mutation.

Now that the researchers have identified the genetic markers behind the MAL mutation, patients can be tested to see if their negative MAL blood type is inherited or due to suppression, which could be a sign of another underlying medical problem.

These rare blood quirks can have devastating impacts on patients, so the more of them we can understand, the more lives can be saved.