Comment by ghostbrainalpha | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ghostbrainalpha | Hacker News Reader

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ghostbrainalpha

I don't know about this man... I get your point but it's a little over dramatic.

My 13 year old girl lives with us half the time. Her other parent the other part of the time.

They let her keep her phone with her all the time. She can completely skip sleeping entirely for more than 2 days when she has her phone all night, texting with friends. She's having fun, but then she crashes and burns HARD when she comes back to our house. Get's sick, can't focus, emotions out of control.

At my house we take her phone away at 10:00pm, and she is passed out 5 minutes later. Funny thing is, I sometimes take away the phone on Sunday, in the afternoon, and she will pass out 5-10 minutes after that too.

Her body just needs a lot more sleep than it is getting. This is probably true with a lot of adults too. We use electronic stimulus to keep us going far beyond our "natural rhythms". Take those away and people can sleep.

If the natural rhythm of a teenager is to be unable to sleep until 2:00am, what are they supposed to do if they ever change time zones? People may have a naturally tendency to be a night owl or whatever, but that is hardly the most important element in the sleep deprivation story going on right now.

This. I mentioned up above that I've always been a morning person along with most of my friends. But, I didn't grow up with a device attached to me. Most of my activities growing up were outside. Going to school early meant more daylight after school to play. Even on weekends I was up with the sun, and often earlier since the surf was typically better early. All spring and summer we would be up at ~4:30am to go fishing. Kids staring at devices all hours of the day has had an enormous impact on their lives that I'm not sure we fully understand yet.

I've never been a morning person. Always been awake late and struggled to wake up in the morning. Imagine how it feels to have people dismiss this as a problem with screen time when I grew up without any screens! (Literally - not even a TV).

I think you will find that people like to generalize everything to black and white so things make sense when in reality there are much more complex things at play, not to mention that humans are not designed to fit one mold. Somehow this is a commonly accepted truth when it comes to baby with “all babies are different” but when focus shifts to teens and adults we are supposed to be neatly organized into cstegories and labels. Pleeeeeeeease...

My point being, your situation is not necessary comparable to others. Case in point, as a child I had a difficult time falling asleep at night without screens. I woke up late and was always tired in the morning. You might attribute this to a number of some factors we probably don’t have time to discuss here. Now, as a teenager I was able to fall asleep like a rock on most days but was still tired the next day in class. I can’t tell ya how many times I’ve heard “that lazy guy” Label being applied to myself and others who shared this trait because imo it’s too convenient to label someone rather than trying to understand the underlying issues.

In any case, I tend to agree that school most definitely starts too early for a growing human being whose development takes place at night and specifically mostly during slee when body is at rest. Is it a surprise then that a developing body requires more sleep? Circadian cycles or not, kids should probably start school at a later time. Now, whether society can accept this and modify adult schedules around new findings is a question not easily answered. I suspect for this to happen, society as a whole will need to move away from 9-5 or at least become more remote and or flexible.

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