Word Spy - junk sleep

n. Low-quality sleep caused by disruptions from nearby electronic devices such as cell phones, computers, and TVs.

Example Citations:

If you're thinking about buying your teenager a cell phone this Christmas, you might want to hold that call.

Some sleep researchers think today's teens are loading up on "junk sleep" — the sleep equivalent of junk food — because they sleep with so many distracting devices: cell phones tucked under their pillows, hand-held computer games on the bedside table, TVs or music playing in the background.

"We have an epidemic of obesity, and we have an epidemic of junk sleep," said Dr. Morris Bird, head of Florida Hospital's Center for Sleep Disorders. "With our 24-hour days, the availability of all these things — all of these things are like a big apple pie that is sitting in front of them — and they can't resist."
—Linda Shrieves, "Bedside tech devices cause 'junk sleep' that leaves kids in a funk, experts say," Orlando Sentinel, December 9, 2007

Each night, Alex Haines, 13, falls asleep to the glow of a television, his cell phone close by his bed.

"It's my gateway to the world. It's always on," said Alex, of Hampden Township, Pa. "I've been sleeping with this stuff on my whole life since I was 8 or 9, ever since I was old enough to make macaroni and cheese."

All together, the seventh-grader owns five electronic gadgets, including a camera, laptop and iPod.

Researchers fear an entire generation is suffering from the effects of this "junk sleep," disrupted sleep blamed on electronic devices, whether it be a computer game played into the wee hours or a cell phone tucked under a pillow.
—Sue Gleiter, "Ever-present electronic devices disrupting teens' sleep," The Star-Ledger, February 26, 2008

Earliest Citation:

Playing with computer games and watching TV is preventing teenagers from getting enough sleep, a report out yesterday claimed.

Almost one in three are surviving on as little as four hours a night and are going to school exhausted, it said.

The survey for the Sleep Council revealed that "junk sleep" was now a major problem for Britain's teens.
—'Expert's warning as young go short on sleep," Yorkshire Post, August 28, 2007

Notes:

Junk sleep also refers to so-called Stage 2 sleep, where the person is unconscious, but isn't coma-like, as in the deeper Stage 3 and Stage 4 sleep states, and isn't dreaming, as in the REM sleep state. It's called junk sleep because even though we spend at least half our time asleep in Stage 2 (which is why it's sometimes called the "baseline" sleep state), it doesn't seem to serve any useful purpose. However, the earliest citation I could find for this sense of the phrase implies that this isn't the case:

Junk sleep may not be useless after all. For roughly half the night, people drift in and out of so-called junk sleep — the deep-sleep state that rather unimaginatively has been named Stage 2 sleep.

While sleep researchers have been able to associate other human deep-sleep modes with dreaming, learning and growth-hormone release, they have never been able to find any function for this junk, or filler, sleep.
—Stephen Strauss, "Junk sleep proves to be value-added," The Globe and Mail, December 10, 1994

Categories:

Lifestyles
Sleeping
Cell Phones
Gadgets and Appliances

Posted on May 22, 2008