Sleep Deprivation in Teens during the Pandemic

by Kaela Ricket

Almost every day more students are feeling burnt out, depressed, sleep-deprived, and drained. Why? For over a year a system not designed to be over Zoom and Canvas, through black screens and empty faces has taken this shape. A once sunny classroom that was an environment ready to cultivate learning and shape the education of this generation is now merely a shell, students feeling less than hopeless and up until 4 a.m. doing classwork. This past year has taken a toll on everyone - and high school students are crumbling.

Highschoolers that grew up through gifted programs and being told they were the highest achievers, reading at levels years above their grade level, are reaching a new level of burnout this year. High school is stressful enough. I think we can all agree between AP tests, ACT, college visits, jobs, sports, internships, clubs, trying to balance the weight of parental expectations and social life is exhausting enough. Now imagine this all through screens and laying their room. Students in a regular year feel pressures of academics and more, but transferring this to online while keeping students from their friends and hardly any social interaction has been more than detrimental to this generation. All of this comes from the past year’s pandemic that has given kids more than one lifelong issue - one being sleep deprivation.

Many students have struggled this past year online and in one area especially with managing time and online school work. All the symptoms of this “pandemic burnout” correlate directly with students suffering from sleep deprivation. Now we keep using this word, but what does it really mean? Sleep deprivation is when a person is not able to get enough sleep and can lead to many serious medical conditions and other daily issues. Like many people you might be thinking, “no one gets enough sleep, it's not that serious.” The issue with this is that developing teenagers are collectively becoming sleep-deprived, which will lead to health concerns and unhealthy patterns. So many teenagers stay up as late as possible, doing assignments, studying, scrolling mindlessly to fill some sort of societal norm, and then have to get up again at seven for Zooms and school. This cycle is constant and leaves teens with less than eight hours of sleep, which is less than ideal for developing brains and leaves permanent effects.

In addition to sleep deprivation affecting teens all across the world, this issue also is very present in our own Athens High School. After a student poll, 67 percent of students said that they get less than eight hours of sleep. The recommended sleep for teens is 9-10 hours of sleep. In another poll, 88 percent of students said that they had effects from not sleeping enough. These effects are sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation leads to less concentration and physical setbacks. After setting up a questionnaire, many if not all students replied that the reason for not getting enough sleep was schoolwork and homework, AP tests, stress from school, and one response of Tik Tok. I believe that this poll and questionnaire shows the stress that this year has put on students making it harder than normal to handle stress and scheduling. This stress and work are taking a toll on this whole generation.

So in order to control the tolls that sleep deprivation sets on teens, there is a need to correct it. One way to do this is by sleeping the recommended amount for your age group. For teens, you should be sleeping eight to ten hours a day. A way to do this during online classes is practicing time management and getting school work done during the day. I think a way teachers could provide support on this is by posting assignments a few days in advance. In conclusion, everyone should adjust themselves during online classes to make time for sleeping to avoid sleep deprivation.