- Introduction/ Background
- Sleep debt is a growing problem that could be reduced by decreasing the amount of homework teachers assign to students, going to bed earlier, but most of all by turning off the electronics.
- “Sleep has become increasingly devalued in the 24-hour society’ (Martin 464).
- “sleep problems affect virtually every aspect of day-to-day living, including mood, mental alertness, work performance, and energy level” (Epstein 472).
- Homework/School Start Time
- “It is also important for teens, like all people, to maintain a consistent sleep schedule across the entire week” (NSF 484).
- “The starting time of school puts limits on the time available for sleep” (Carskadon 492)
- Going to bed earlier
- “Staying up late can cause chaos in your sleep patterns and your ability to be alert the next day…and beyond” (NSF 487).
- Technology
- A Third of Life – “…Children’s bedrooms increasingly resemble places of entertainment rather than places of sleep” (Martin 464)
- “Watching television is the most popular activity (76%) for adolescents in the hour before bed time, while surfing the internet/instant-messaging (44%) and talking on the phone (40%) are close behind” (NSF 485).
- “Nearly all adolescents (97%) have at least one electronic item — such as a television, computer, telephone or music device — in their bedroom. On average, 6th-graders have more than two of these items in their bedroom, while 12th-graders have about four” (NSF 485).
- “Many teens have a technological playground in their bedrooms that offers a variety of ways to stay stimulated and delay sleep” (NSF 486).
- Counterargument
- “It is not difficult to project that a large number of students see a later starting time as permission to stay up later at night studying, working, surfing the net, watching television and so forth” (Carskadon 495).
- While these solutions seem good, you can’t make students do these things, and they are not very realistic.
- Conclusion
- Works Cited