Frere Jacques, dormez-vous?
The UK's Sleep Council has announced that "junk sleep" — where teenagers distracted by electronics get less than 8 hours of sleep — could rival junk food as a lifestyle issue.
A poll of 1,000 teens between 12 and 16 found that 30 percent got four to seven hours of sleep at most. A quarter said they fell asleep more than once a week while engaged with electronics - with the TV, the radio or the computer on.
"What we are seeing is the emergence of junk sleep - that is, sleep that is of neither the length nor quality that it should be in order to feed the brain with the rest it needs to perform properly at school," chided Dr. Chris Idzikowski of the Edinburgh Sleep Center, reports Reuters.
Around two-thirds of teenagers polled had a phone, music system and a TV in their bedroom. Nearly all had at least one or two.
Sleep is not the only loser in the UK's teen/tech battle. Last June, a coalition of teachers demanded that mobile phones be banned as potentially offensive weapons.
