Just one more episode on Netflix? Just one more link on Reddit? Just one more whisky—then you’ll sleep? Who are you fooling?
A new study published in Frontiers in Psychology has confirmed what many internet denizens have long feared (or accepted): that there’s such a thing as sleep procrastination.
Procrastination is the voluntarily delay of something you intend to do even though you know you’ll be worse off because of it. About half of all college students report doing it, the other half are liars, and at least twenty per cent of relationships out there still exist because one person is putting off a breakup.
So what’s sleep procrastination? According to 177 people surveyed for the study, it’s getting distracted when you mean to go to bed, going to bed later than intended, and not going to bed . . . just because. Even though we know how bad insufficient sleep is.
According to lead author Floor Kroese, “Bedtime procrastination may be a relatively modern phenomenon.”
