I ran across both an interesting study and a new survey last week that I want to share with you today. The study is about devices and teen sleep and the survey concerns vaping. This is all-new information, so hold on and listen up. I’ll be right back with a short but informative episode.

 

What are the rules about device use and bedtime at your house?

A new study from the University of Otago in New Zealand looked at bedtime device use and sleep in teens. You know the rule about no screens within the 1 to 2 hours before bed? Well, they actually found it wasn’t that time window that mattered at all. No big deal if you use your laptop or phone 30 minutes before bed, an hour before bed or right up until time to go to bed.

It was using a screen while IN the bed that made all the difference.

The researchers had 85 adolescents between the ages of 11 to 14, wear a body cam on their chest for a week, beginning 3 hours before they got in bed every night. The camera caught everything they did with screens in this time period. Then as they got in bed, they put on something called an altigraph, which is a wrist-worn device that measures sleep.

The head researcher, Brad Brosnan, a PhD candidate at the university, calls this study the BED study – for Bedtime, Electronic Device study. Brosnan is quoted in one article as saying, “It quickly became obvious that adolescents spend a lot of their screen time while in bed,"

The researchers found that close to 100% of the adolescents used screens within the 2 hours before they went to bed and over half used them after they got into bed and at least one third of them used them if they couldn’t go to sleep or work up in the middle of the night.

But the only screentime they found that negatively impacted their sleep was that once in bed. Especially if they were multitasking with more than one device at a time (like watching a movie and looking at their phone).

They found that this type of “in bed” screen use kept them from going to sleep on average for about half an hour and reduced their overall sleep. They actually found a minute per minute correlation – 10 minutes of additional in-bed screen time, led to 10 minutes of lost sleep that night.

Bottom line: do your best to get those devices out of the bedroom at least by the time they get in bed.

And do yourself a favor and create the same rule for your own bedtime. If your like me, you can stay up until 2 am looking at tree houses on Air B&B or pretend shopping on Banana Republic.

Is your teen vaping nicotine? Are their friends? If you don’t believe so, have you been vigilant and on the lookout for any hint of cucumber or dragon fruit on their breath?

Well, new survey results just released last week in the latest National Youth Tobacco Survey from the American Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration, just might be of interest to you.

The government is telling us, in this report, that fewer teens are now vaping that at any other point in the past decade. And depending on how you look at it, this could be a really good indicator that some of the enforcement action the government has taken, is actually paying off.

The report is the result of a survey of 29,000 middle and high school students and shows that vaping declined from 7.7% in 2023 to 5.9% in 2024. By comparison, at the peak of the vaping problem, 27% of high school students reported vaping. And even though there was a less that 2% decline, that equates to around 500,000 fewer teens vaping this year compared to last.

Now, the director of the FDA’s tobacco division us shouting it from the rooftops because it makes the agency look like it’s actually doing something to effect change. The New York Times does report that certain “health officials” point to the FDA’s enforcement actions against stores selling the disposable flavored vapes…but really? The last look I had a few short months ago, it didn’t appear that much was happening in that arena. I’m pretty certain I can still walk into any convenience store and buy a disposable fruity flavored vape – but perhaps that’s changed where you live.

But there have been lots of scary letters sent out to convenience store chains and there’ve even been some seizures of the favorite of teens everywhere - elf bars - as they’ve been flown into the country. The states of California and Massachusetts didn’t wait on the federal government and banned the products by state law and apparently have done a pretty good job enforcing those laws.

In the meantime, a dozen countries in the European Union are trying to ban flavored vapes and limit the levels of nicotine in others. Things are moving in the right direct and it does appear that more and more teens are choosing to stay away from vaping – apparently, deciding it’s not worth the risk.

On the other side of the coin, many of the teens who started vaping back when the devices were first put on the market, are still addicted to it. The Monitoring the Future Survey conducted by the University of Michigan and the National Institutes of Health found that about 20 to 24 percent of young people aged 19 to 26 are vaping (roughly the same percentage that were vaping back when they were in high school.

Along with this report comes a new rule from the FDA that goes into effect September 30^th.  As you probably know, it’s illegal to sell tobacco products, including vapes, to anyone under the age of 21. And previously, the rule was that retailers had to verify with a photo ID, anyone who appeared to be under the age of 27. But as of the end of this month, retailers must request a photo ID from anyone who appears to be under 30. I hope that means, for most, that if you appear to be under 50, they’ll card you because how on earth can you really tell, right?

So, overall, this is all good news.

But which kids do we need to be worried about vaping. Well, a new study out of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry found that adolescents with lower levels of wellbeing are twice as likely to start vaping.

The study looked at over 5,000 year 7 and 8 students (12 and 13 year olds) from 40 schools across New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia. About 8.3% said they vaped. They found that of those kids, the ones who had moderate stress levels and high stress levels were 64% and 74% more likely to vape than those with low stress.

And the kids that rated their wellbeing as low were 105% more likely to vape than those who said their wellbeing was high.

So, be extra vigilant and get your kid the professional help they need before they turn to substances as a coping mechanism.

You can check out my series on vaping in episodes 109, 111, 113 and 114 – I’ll link to them in the show notes.