Impact of Screen Use Time on Sleep Pattern in School going Children from 3 To 15 Years of Age during Lockdown due to Corona Pandemic

The upsurge experienced in social media and digital gadgets use time due to COVID lockdown can be seen. Inclined use of social media and online apps in Pakistan by adolescents has been observed eversince the introduction of 3G and 4G internet services. Heavier digital gadgets use causes poor sleep patterns, particularly late sleep onset. This study aims to find impact of digital screen-time use on sleep pattern in school going children between 3 to 15 years of age during lockdown due to corona pandemic. It was conducted at KIPSchool Lahore, Pakistan during three months period following descriptive cross sectional study design. Information was gathered on a proforma, first part tells demographic details, digital gadget details, pre bed and total use time, type of content watched, previous illness. Second part gathered information about disorders of initiating and maintaining sleep, sleep breathing disorders, arousal, nightmares, sleep-wake transition disorders, excessive somnolence, sleep hyperhidrosis. We took 2hours or < screen time as safe and > 2hours as unsafe screen time for children. Total screen time was 4.3 + 2.87hours per day, with pre-bed screen time of 1.92 + 1.83 hours. Taking 2hours as safe pre-bed screen-time , 324 of 433(74.8%) children were under safe category, 25.2% children were in unsafe category. Mostly children used mobile phones(58%) to watch educational(35%) and recreational(55%) content during the lockdown. Only significant pattern was difficulty falling to sleep and day-time sleep (p value = 0.04). Snoring in 4.8% children, pauses in breathing(5%), unpleasant dreams(17.3%), teeth grinding(9.2%) and sleep-talking in 10.6% children. There are no guidelines for children >5 years regarding the safe pre-bed screen time. Although most of our results were not significant but still screen time is disturbing the sleep of the children. Further studies with larger population should be done, because COVID-19 is probably going to stay.