Nature and Science of Sleep

Sleep Health Challenges and Interventions across the Lifespan in the Digital Age

As digital devices become more and more common in daily life, sleep health for people of all ages has shown distinct age-specific sleep patterns. Adolescents often go to bed and wake up later because they use social media at night; working adults feel overstimulated before sleep due to long hours of screen time at work; and older adults have more broken sleep because blue light from digital devices affects them. This change has made research on how digital tools influence sleep—such as disrupting the body’s internal clock or overstimulating the brain—and ways to address these issues a key focus of interdisciplinary research. While we already know that too much digital use changes sleep patterns and have tried simple solutions like limiting screen time, there is still much we don’t understand. Future research needs to figure out how digital use affects different age groups biologically and develop personalized, easy-to-use ways to improve sleep health in the digital era.

This Article Collection is highly significant for both medical science and public health, as digital technology has led to a notable increase in sleep problems among people of different ages worldwide. Studies show that sleep issues among adolescents have become much more common with the rise of digital tools. Not getting enough sleep regularly can hinder the development of the brain’s decision-making areas and make young people more prone to mood disorders. For working adults, using digital devices excessively is closely linked to a much higher chance of chronic insomnia, which can lead to workplace accidents and long-term health conditions like heart disease. In older adults, exposure to blue light from digital devices is associated with more difficulty staying asleep, which worsens age-related declines in immune function and the ability to live independently. Given the widespread impact of unaddressed digital-related sleep problems across all age groups, it is crucial to conduct more in-depth research and develop targeted solutions to reduce the long-term health and social costs.

This Article Collection welcomes submissions covering (but not limited to): (1) how digital use affects sleep patterns in different age groups and what these sleep problems look like in daily life; (2) the biological and psychological reasons behind digital-related sleep issues (such as sleep disruption or insomnia) across all age groups; (3) how sleep problems caused by digital use interact with people’s emotional and social well-being in adolescents, adults, and older adults; (4) effective, age-specific ways to improve sleep health affected by digital use; (5) broad health impacts of digital-related sleep issues on populations and priorities for future research. This Article Collection accepts the following article types: Brief Research Reports, Original Research Articles, Clinical Trials & Population Interventions, Systematic Review & Meta Analysis.

Keywords:

• Screen time and sleep
• Circadian disruption
• Blue light exposure
• Age-specific interventions
• Digital device-induced sleep dysfunction

All manuscripts submitted to this Article Collection will undergo desk assessment and peer review if they can pass the desk assessments as part of our standard editorial process; the Guest Advisor for this Collection will not be handling the manuscripts (unless they are an Editorial Board member).

The deadline for submitting manuscripts is 30 April 2027.

Please contact Thalia Geiger at [email protected] with any queries and discount codes regarding this Article Collection.