According to experts at the WVU Sleep Center, interacting with
our gadgets at night-time is a prescription for insomnia. When
Harshal Patel, a senior engineering major at West Virginia
University, goes to sleep, he keeps his cell phone on next to
his bed. He likes to use the phone as an alarm but when he gets
a text or call in the middle of the night, it invariably wakes
him up. “I only answer if it’s important,” Patel says. But he
acknowledges that the noise disrupts his sleep. Patel is far
from alone. According to one study, 50 percent of people who
sleep with their phones on wake up in the middle of the night
and check their phones. However, experts say that such practices
may cause sleep deprivation. And now new research shows that
excessive reliance on electronic gadgets (like cell phones and
laptops) can actually hurt your academic performance. A recent
study by researchers at the The Miriam Hospital’s Center for
Behavioral and Preventive Medicine in Providence, RI, shows that
the use of such devices to