wellness
Evening Device Use Cuts Chicago Residents' Sleep Cycles, Research Confirms
Recent studies tie evening device use directly to shorter sleep cycles for Chicago residents.
How we reported this
A 2025 University of Chicago analysis of 2,400 adults found that participants who cut screen exposure after 9 p.m. gained an average of 42 minutes of total sleep time per night.
That finding lands at a time when many Wicker Park households report heavier phone and tablet habits during longer summer evenings. Local health clinics have noted rising requests for sleep consultations since May, with staff linking the uptick to consistent patterns of late-night scrolling on Division Street and North Avenue.
Local programs tracking device habits
The Wicker Park branch of the Chicago Public Library launched a six-week screen curfew workshop in April that meets every Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. on the second floor. Twenty-three residents signed up for the first session, which includes a simple logging app and group check-ins. Across Milwaukee Avenue, the Bloom Yoga Studio on North Avenue added a 7 p.m. wind-down class in June that explicitly bans phones in the studio space.
Data from the National Sleep Foundation’s 2024 survey showed 68 percent of adults between 25 and 44 used a screen within one hour of bedtime on weeknights. The same report recorded an average 34-minute delay in sleep onset for that group compared with those who powered down earlier.
Residents who want to test the findings can start with one concrete change this week. Set a recurring 9:15 p.m. alarm that dims the phone to grayscale and moves it to another room, then track sleep length for seven nights using any basic tracker app. Local primary-care offices on Damen Avenue can review the results during a standard visit if patterns remain disrupted.