Saturday, September 20, 2014

sleeping with smartphones

I'm sure you've seen those studies that say our smartphones make us tired. Because they're attached to our faces even while we're trying to sleep, our brains don't go into proper shut-down mode and we have a harder time falling and staying asleep.  (This is a very scientific and technical explanation. You're welcome.)

My roommate (and fellow coffee slave) uses his smartphone as his alarm, and so he has to keep it plugged in next to his bed.  I, however, am old-school, and have a digital alarm clock that awakens me long before the crack of dawn with the sweet sounds of whatever crackly top-40 or country twang station I can pick up with a crappy clock-radio antenna in the middle of nowhere. (I think waking up to the radio is better than the traditional beeping noise, though the other day the first song that came on was that wretched "turn down for what" nonsense and that's a tough call.) But I have been in the habit of using Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest as my bedtime stories, not-lulling me to sleep with their glowing electronic nonsense, and have kept my phone by my bedside.

But for about a week now, I've been leaving my phone to charge in the kitchen at night. And shockingly, I do think I sleep better! I'm still a little worried that I might miss a phone call from work if I oversleep, or the power goes out and resets my alarm clock. I get up super early to caffeinate the rest of the world on their way to work... But really, it's just coffee. And they'd probably just call my roommate to wake me up anyway.