Yet another reason to get your kids away from technology … it’s making them sad. Yeah sure, there are plenty of you who already figured this out, but it always helps when official studies prove what we already knew. A recent one done by researchers at Stony Brook University in New York found that too much screen time is disrupting the sleep habits of young people and causing them to feel depressed.

The Study Behind The Sad Epiphany

The research team behind the study surveyed 3,000 teens over a span of 3 years. They asked the subjects how much time they spent doing four “activities”: using the internet, playing video games, interacting with friends on social media, and watching television. They also queried each teen about their sleep habits, as well as if they had any feelings of depression. A surprisingly large number of them did.

What researchers found was that insomnia and lack of sleep—caused by all of that screen time—could be behind their elevated levels of depression. The biggest culprit of the sleep deprivation? Well, it was gaming and surfing the web. Not texting with their buddies.

Study author Xian Stella Li said, “Higher rates of depressive symptoms among teens may be partially explained through the ubiquitous use of screen-based activities, which can interfere with high-quality restorative sleep.”

Other Factors Behind Depression In Teens

Everyone experiences moments of sadness in their lives—especially teens. The teenage years are fraught with stressful moments and sad emotions. Puberty not only affects a child’s body, but their mind as well. The stress of schoolwork, peer pressure, and thoughts of love and sex have been messing with young minds a lot longer than video games, computers, and social media have. And while there have been countless studies attributing violence and depressive feelings to these modern devices and entities, this new one is one of the first to focus on the physiological-psychological correlation.

The fact that the lack of sleeping is causing kids to be sad is something to be concerned about … especially in this day of increasing suicides. And it’s yet another reason for parents to think about monitoring their teens with a high-quality phone spy app.

If You’re Sad, Get Help

If you’re feeling sad, you should talk to someone. Anyone. And if your sadness is leading you to thoughts of suicide, you need help. Don’t suffer in silence, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1 800 273-8255 if you ever feel completely hopeless. You are far more important to the world than you think.