Publications by authors named "Heather Cleland Woods"
Video games are commonly of interest in autism, with autistic adolescents playing twice as much as their Typically Developing peers. The aims of this study are to investigate whether motivations to play video games measured using the Gaming Attitudes, Motivations and Experiences Scales and autistic traits using the Autism Spectrum Quotient can predict time spent playing video games. 57 participants were recruited from internet forums and completed an online questionnaire.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: There is a pressing need to update sleep models, education and treatment to better reflect the realities of sleep in a 24/7 connected social world. Progress has been limited to date by available measurement tools, which have largely focused on the frequency or duration of individuals' social media use, without capturing crucial sleep-relevant aspects of this inherently social and interactive experience.
Methods: Survey data from 3008 adolescents (aged 10-18 years) was used to rigorously develop and validate a new self-report measure that quantifies difficulty disengaging from social media interactions at night: the index of Nighttime Offline Distress (iNOD).
Article Synopsis
- This study investigates the link between social media use and sleep quality in over 11,000 UK adolescents aged 13-15, while accounting for various influencing factors.
- The findings show that heavier social media users tend to experience worse sleep patterns, such as later sleep onset and difficulties waking up, compared to average users.
- The research highlights the need for sleep education and interventions to help youth manage their social media habits alongside better sleep practices.*
Objectives: Bedtime social media use is associated with poor sleep during adolescence, which in turn contributes to poor mental health, impaired daytime functioning and lower academic achievement. However, the underlying drivers for these bedtime social media habits remain understudied. This study adds an adolescent perspective on motivations for bedtime social media use and perceived impact on sleep.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- - This study explores how adolescent social media use affects sleep quality, focusing on the roles of fear of missing out (FOMO) and other cognitive behaviors.
- - Findings indicate that using social media at night leads to later bedtimes and longer times to fall asleep, ultimately resulting in less sleep overall.
- - The research suggests that interventions should target both social media habits and cognitive factors like FOMO to improve sleep outcomes for adolescents.
This study examined how social media use related to sleep quality, self-esteem, anxiety and depression in 467 Scottish adolescents. We measured overall social media use, nighttime-specific social media use, emotional investment in social media, sleep quality, self-esteem and levels of anxiety and depression. Adolescents who used social media more - both overall and at night - and those who were more emotionally invested in social media experienced poorer sleep quality, lower self-esteem and higher levels of anxiety and depression.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- Prominent models of insomnia suggest that how people pay attention to sleep-related stimuli influences their experience of insomnia.
- A systematic review examined 13 studies using reaction time tasks to assess sleep-related attentional bias, revealing that poor sleepers generally show different attention patterns compared to healthy sleepers.
- Despite some studies showing significant group differences, the limited number of studies and varied methodologies prevent firm conclusions about how attentional bias contributes to the development or persistence of insomnia, indicating a need for more focused research.
Article Synopsis
- The study investigates how individuals with insomnia allocate their attention to sleep-related and neutral words using a novel methodology involving eye tracking.
- Participants included individuals classified into insomnia and good sleeper groups based on interviews and sleep questionnaires.
- Results showed that those with insomnia had delayed fixation on target words compared to good sleepers, suggesting a potential neurocognitive deficit rather than an attention bias towards negative sleep stimuli.