Study: 1 In 4 College Students Sends Texts In Sleep, Most Won't Remember
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) - A new study from a Villanova College of Nursing professor says a growing number of adolescent college students are texting friends in the wee hours of the night, with no recollection of having done so.
More than 25 percent of the kids surveyed said they texted in their sleep and 72 percent of those students say they don't remember doing it, reports CBS2's Scott Rapoport.
Texting is especially high in this group, among whom the study says they exchange as many as 60 to 100 text messages a day.
"People have gotten used to sleeping next to their devices," said sleep specialist Dr. John Werber. "So subconsciously people are falling off to sleep and there may be some angst about communicating with someone or contacting someone.
"They're reaching for the phone in this kind of altered state on consciousness," he said.
Werber says it is not a new phenomenon.
Several years ago, 23-year-old Megan told CBS2 she was doing the same thing.
"I guess I got up and texted and went back to bed, but I don't remember it," she said.
Megan relates her friends and family would receive middle of the night notes from her, and that's how she found out she was doing it.
"(At) 4 o'clock in the morning. 3 o'clock in the morning, it would just be a sentence of jumbled up stuff," she said.
READ: 'Sleep Texting' Poses Health Risks For Smartphone Users
One student in the study said her solution to sleep texting was to wear mittens to bed every night.
Experts say the problem is that sleep texting causes interrupted sleep, which can affect someone mentally, physically and more.
"It affects you emotionally because people become more anxious and depressed when they don't have enough sleep," noted Werber.
He says the solution is to ditch the phone and the electronics, get them out of the bedroom and give your brain the rest it needs.