Wired and not Tired? Internet Use and Sleep in Older Adults

Abstract

Purpose Sleep health is an important aspect of overall well-being, particularly among older adults(Ravyts & Dzierzewski, 2022), who might experience changes in sleep patterns and quality due to multimorbidity (Kim et al., 2009). In recent years, the increasing use of the internet by older adults has introduced new factors into the sleep health equation. Increased use of digital devices for socializing, information, and entertainment might be beneficial for cognitive and social health (Ghazi et al., 2022) but could also harm sleep quality due to blue light exposure and disrupted schedules. The aim of this study is to investigate sleep health among internet users Method A cross-sectional survey was carried out under the longitudinal research project ‘Swedish National Study on Aging and Care-Blekinge’ (SNAC-B). Questionnaires were sent to 587 participants aged 60 and above, out of which 436 respondents were received, resulting in a response rate of 74.2% for the survey. Sleep health was measured using a SATED questionnaire (Buysse, 2014), and internet use was a binary question. We analysed internet usage's impact on sleep health using the Mann-Whitney Test and multivariate linear regression, incorporating confounding variables (C.V). Results and Discussion The findings of this study showed that older adults who use the internet have significantly better sleep health scores compared to non-internet users (p-value:0.005). In regression, we found that the significant positive effect of internet use on sleep health observed in Model 1 without C.V (B = 0.601, p = 0.022) is reduced and becomes non-significant in Model 2 with C.V age, gender, education, and living status (B = 0.150, p = 0.610). Model 2 explains 4.8% of the variance in sleep health scores, while Model 1 explains 1.5%, showing an improved explanatory power with the additional predictors. This indicates that the relationship between internet use and sleep health is likely influenced by other factors. Since the relationship between internet use and sleep health becomes non-significant (rather than significantly negative) when including confounders, it implies that internet use does not have a significantly negative effect on sleep health. These results may be explained by the increase in eHealth literacy in this population (Ghazi et al., 2023),which correlates to more responsible technology use for health information, promoting better habits like improved sleep, and enhancing sleep quality (Milanti et al., 2023).

References

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