Up Past Our Bedtimes

Societal pressure pushes people to stay up late and appears to curtail sleep more than wake times, a new study shows.

A team of University of Michigan researchers used data on sleep patterns collected from an app to quantify, globally, how age, sunrise, and sunset affect sleep. They found that a country’s average bedtime predicts sleep duration, and also showed that age and sex are important factors, with women scheduling more sleep than men and middle-aged men faring the worst.

The research opens a path to better understand societal influences on sleep research.
Science Advances