A new study from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health reveals a troubling trend: teenagers across the United States are sleeping less than ever before. The findings, published in Pediatrics, show consistent declines in sleep across every age category, with only 22% of older adolescents reporting they slept at least seven hours each night.
Rachel Widome, the study’s lead author and a professor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, points to both longstanding and emerging barriers to adequate sleep. Traditional challenges like homework, extracurricular demands, social pressures, and part-time jobs persist, while newer obstacles have emerged in recent years, including “increasingly ever-present screens and social media as well as recent society-wide stressors such as the pandemic, social unrest or militarized policing.”
Disparities in Sleep Outcomes
The research reveals growing gaps in sleep deprivation by demographic group. Black and Latino adolescents, along with those whose parents have lower education levels, are increasingly less likely to get adequate sleep compared with other populations. Older adolescents face the most significant impact, with sleep duration declining steadily as teens age and feelings of adequate rest dropping significantly from early to late teen years.
The study drew from Monitoring the Future, a long-running national survey of over 400,000 U.S. students in grades eight, 10, and 12 from 1991 through 2023. Researchers asked two primary questions: how often students slept at least seven hours per night and whether they believed they were getting enough rest.
Long-Term Health Consequences and Solutions
Insufficient sleep contributes to everyday exhaustion and impaired functioning, while also linking to serious long-term issues including mental health problems, academic struggles, and chronic illnesses in adulthood. Recent student-led research from Aim Ideas Lab in California found that roughly two-thirds of high school students reported experiencing burnout and anxiety, with about a quarter believing they had time for basic needs like sleep, eating, and hygiene only two days a week or less.
Widome and colleagues suggest delaying high school start times to 8:30 a.m. or later, noting that “earlier starts are in direct conflict with preset rhythms of adolescent circadian biology.” She emphasizes that “a nation of sleep-deprived adolescents is not inevitable” and calls for broader cultural change: “We should embrace a culture of sleep, where sleep is actually valued and where we commit to enacting policies and other interventions that promote healthy sleep for everyone.”
This article is an AI-assisted summary. All facts and figures are drawn from the original report: https://www.nytimesnewstoday.com/us-teens-getting-less-sleep-than-ever-new-report-finds/