The Most Important Screen Time Rule: No Devices in the Bedroom

Editor’s Note: This essay is excerpted from Rule #2 of 10 Rules for Raising Kids in a High-Tech World (the full chapter also includes how-to tips). 
When Diana Park’s daughter was in 7th grade, she got her first smartphone. The middle-schooler knew she was not supposed to be on her phone after bedtime. But then, late one night, Diana heard her daughter talking and went to investigate. Her 12-year-old was FaceTiming with a friend at midnight—a good three hours after her bedtime. The girl then confessed that her siblings did the same.

Diana’s kids are not alone. A shocking 6 out of 10 kids used their phones between midnight and 5 a.m. on school nights in a study that tracked 11- to 17-year-olds’ phone use for a week. Some kids delay going to sleep because it’s too difficult to put down their phones. Others wake up in the middle of the night and can’t resist grabbing it. “Sometimes I look up and it’s 3 a.m. and I’m watching a video of a giraffe eating a steak,” said 15-year-old Owen Lanahan. “And I wonder, ‘How did I get here?’”

“How did we get here?” is a good question. An even better one is “How can we get out?”

And it is imperative that we do. Not getting enough sleep is a risk factor for just about everything we’d like our kids to avoid, from getting sick to feeling depressed. Yet most kids—90% according to one study—are not getting enough sleep. And if they are waking up in the middle of the night to use their phones, as a third of teens admitted to in one survey, the sleep they do get is fragmented and low quality.

Avoiding the Screen Monsters

Getting devices physically out of the bedroom after bedtime prevents three sleep-disturbing monsters:

1. The I Might as Well See What’s Going on Monster: Using the device in the middle of the night or being awakened by it. 

Recall that six out of 10 teens use their phones between midnight and 5 a.m. on school nights at least once a week. That’s not just from staying up late—28% of 12- and 13-year-olds used their phones when they woke up during the night. One out of four said that texts or phone calls had woken them up after they went to sleep. If the device is in the bedroom, it’s very tempting to see if your friend texted you back, how many likes you’ve gotten on your social media post, or what new videos have shown up. And if the ringer is left on, the automatic response is to look at the phone to see what’s going on. With the device in the bedroom, kids will wake up multiple times a night and then have to try to go back to sleep. With so many kids using their phones at night, at least one of their friends is probably awake, too.

2. The Just One More Video Monster: Delaying going to bed because they want to keep using the device. 

Middle and high school kids are already predisposed to stay up late due to the shift in their circadian rhythm. Throw in the siren song of videos, texting friends, and the endless scroll of social media and it’s all over. And if there’s a gaming console in the room? Forget about it.

3. The Ha! Try to Sleep Now! Monster: Using the device in bed right before going to sleep. 

This is a problem even if it’s not kids’ bedtime yet, for three reasons. First, nearly everything kids do on their devices is psychologically stimulating, so devices rev up the brain when it should be slowing down. Second, they are learning to associate their bed with stimulation rather than rest. So even on nights when they don’t use a device in bed, they’ve conditioned their brain to expect stimulation there, and they’ll have a harder time falling asleep. Third, the blue light from devices tricks the brain into thinking it’s still daytime. Then they don’t produce enough of the sleep hormone melatonin, and it takes longer to fall asleep and is more difficult to sleep soundly. And if the device is in bed with them right before bedtime, it’s more likely to stay there overnight—cue Monster #1.

This is why study after study has found that kids who have access to their devices in their bedrooms do not sleep as well or for as long. Kids who used their devices right before sleep, compared to those who didn’t, were 44% more likely to not sleep enough and 51% more likely to not sleep well in an analysis of 20 studies. In another study, 11- to 14-year-olds slept nearly a half hour less on nights when they texted or played games on a device while in bed before they went to sleep. Kids who used their devices before sleep were also more likely to feel sleepy during the day. Just having access to the device in the room, even if it wasn’t used, was linked to not sleeping enough and not sleeping well.

Some kids will argue that they should be able to have their devices in their room overnight because they will turn them off before they go to sleep. This data suggests that’s not a good idea. Plus, how do you know if they have actually turned it off and kept if off? You don’t, because, with any luck, you’re asleep.

By the way, the no devices in the bedroom overnight rule applies to adults as well. You will sleep better if you put your phone, tablet, and laptop outside your bedroom. You may need to be guilty of digital hypocrisy sometimes, but you should follow this rule yourself if at all possible.

Excerpted from: 10 RULES FOR RAISING KIDS IN A HIGH-TECH WORLD: How Parents Can Stop Smartphones, Social Media, and Gaming from Taking Over Their Children's Lives by Jean Twenge (Atria Books; Hardcover; September 2, 2025; ISBN: 9781668099995); published by Atria Books, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC. Printed by permission. Copyright © 2025.