Parents who worry that their teenaged son won't sleep well if he indulges in a violent video game right before bedtime may be fretting needlessly.
A new study found that teens who played the popular video game "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare" took only slightly longer to fall asleep than teens who watched a documentary.
A report on the finding appears in the April 15 issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine.
Australian researchers found that it took teens a median of 7.5 minutes to fall asleep after playing the video game, only slightly longer than the three minutes it took them to nod off after watching the Academy Award-winning March of the Penguins on DVD.
The video gamers were only slightly less sleepy than the documentary watchers following each activity, although they displayed a slight increase in cognitive alertness. The researchers found no significant differences in physiologic arousal between the two groups, and both ended up sleeping normally.
Source: BusinessWeek
http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/638097.html
A new study found that teens who played the popular video game "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare" took only slightly longer to fall asleep than teens who watched a documentary.
A report on the finding appears in the April 15 issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine.
Australian researchers found that it took teens a median of 7.5 minutes to fall asleep after playing the video game, only slightly longer than the three minutes it took them to nod off after watching the Academy Award-winning March of the Penguins on DVD.
The video gamers were only slightly less sleepy than the documentary watchers following each activity, although they displayed a slight increase in cognitive alertness. The researchers found no significant differences in physiologic arousal between the two groups, and both ended up sleeping normally.
Source: BusinessWeek
http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/638097.html