We’ve been celebrating our fifth anniversary by highlighting some of the articles that have gained us attention, along with some that demonstrate our unique approach. 

Our final highlight, from 2015, comes from Mari Hysing, from Uni Research Health, and colleagues. Sleep and use of electronic devices in adolescence: results from a large population-based study was our most downloaded article in 2015, and has an Altmetric score of 319. According to the database Scopus, the article has already been cited 7 times.

Using data from nearly 10,000 adolescents, the study shows an association between screen time and quality of sleep. The longer a teen spends looking at a screen throughout the day, the worse the quality of sleep he or she is likely to have.

We asked Dr Hysing about the impact the article has made. She replied:

Research is quite a lonely exercise and knowing that others are interested in what we do gave us extra  motivation to continue.   It has been a great experience to publish this paper and  it was a very intense and fascinating week when the article got published.   

I have never experienced this level of media interest–by far–and this is probably a once in a lifetime experience.  Newspapers, TV channels and radio interviews from all over the world took most of my time that week.  Being able to reach out to so many with the research we do is a great experience. This is what we work for. 

Our study was on  the association between use of electronic devices and sleep. And I realized how many really struggle to get the sleep that they need, and how hard it is to log off and prioritize sleep. In addition to the interest from adolescents and parents, it seemed to be a big problem among the journalist that did the interviews. Maybe this is one reason why our article gained so much media attention?