How and Why People Use Mobile Phones Near Bedtime and in Bed: Israelis’ Narratives of Digitally Enabled Sleepful Sociality

Abstract

Although prior studies have examined the impact of smartphone use on sleep and there is a growing interest in the interface between mobile phones and society, researchers know little about how and why people use mobile phones before bedtime and in bed. The current research explores this question by drawing on data from sleep diaries and in-depth interviews with 66 Israelis. The results show that the human–mobile phone sleep assemblage generates agentic capacities that allow individuals to engage in a digitally enabled form of what I call sleepful sociality – a sociality marked by sleep. Through the use of mobile phones, individuals create, maintain and/or detach from social relations and fulfil social obligations near bedtime and during sleep, while also trying to facilitate and protect their own and their bed partner’s sleep. These findings enhance the understanding of how technology is enmeshed with sociality and creates new ways of being social.

Introduction

Even though we’ve heard a million times that the blue light coming off our phones, laptops, and TVs keeps us up at night, a lot of us end up sabotaging our sleep because we just can’t seem to power down our screens [. . .] over half of Americans polled say that they look at screens within an hour before bedtime or in bed before sleep. Despite our best intentions, we can’t seem to quit screen time. (National Sleep Foundation, 2022)

According to this news release about a recent poll conducted by the National Sleep Foundation, Americans know that engaging in screen time before bedtime or in bed can disturb their sleep but they find themselves powerless to stop using these devices. Indeed, multiple studies have reported on screen time’s ill effects on sleep and the circadian system as well as on the mechanisms driving this negative impact (AlShareef, 2022; Exelmans and Van den Bulck, 2019; Tosini et al., 2016). Why, then, do people continue to use electronic media in general, and mobile phones in particular, before bedtime and in bed?

The current empirical analysis addresses this question, exploring how and why people use mobile phones near bedtime and in bed by drawing on data from in-depth interviews and sleep diaries completed by 66 Israelis. The findings indicate that respondents use mobile phones to engage in a digitally enabled form of what I call sleepful sociality, a sociality marked by sleep. That is, through the use of mobile phones, participants create, maintain and/or detach from social relations and fulfil their social roles and obligations around and during sleep, while also trying to facilitate and protect their own sleep and that of their bed partner. By exploring mobile phone use before bedtime and in bed, a topic sociologists have largely neglected, this study offers insights into the link between technology and society as well as between sleep and society.

Background and Literature

Mobile Phones in Everyday Experience

As with other information and communication technologies, mobile phones and smartphones have become an essential part of the ‘social’, reconfiguring how people experience and understand the world as well as how they act in it (Katz and Aakhus, 2002; Miller et al., 2021; Yan, 2017). Such changes occur, at least in part, due to the affordances of these devices – their functional, material and relational aspects, which both constrain and enable their possible meanings and uses (Hutchby, 2001). Mobile phones are portable and enable both real-time, synchronous connectivity and delayed, asynchronous connectivity, thus creating a range of possibilities for communication and the formation or maintenance of social bonds. When mobile phones began to offer online connection, they provided a rapidly expanding set of options for constant connectivity to social networks and news sources that exceeded the previous temporal and geographic constraints.

Mobile devices and various apps have become an integral component of nearly every aspect of our lives in part because they allow – and sometimes require – us to do numerous things we could not previously do (Fortunati and Taipale, 2014; Sobieraj and Rohlinger, 2020). However, as these possibilities increase, so do social expectations and demands (Willson, 2010). Thus, scholars have suggested that instead of increasing free time, these technologies contribute to the process of social acceleration, which entails a quickening of the pace of life and increased expectations for speed, instantaneity and simultaneity (Hsu, 2014; Rosa, 2003, 2013). In a troubling cycle, some people use mobile devices and apps to meet these expectations, in the process providing personal information to companies that capitalise on these data and thus have incentives to keep users engaged (Zuboff, 2020). Smartphones might, therefore, use individuals, ‘bending us to their compulsive rhythms’ (Agger, 2011: 119). At the same time, however, people might use smartphones as a tool, exercising agency to navigate and manipulate time as a way of ‘acting upon time’ (Moroşanu and Ringel, 2016; Moroşanu et al., 2020). That is, ‘technologies in themselves do not lead to either velocity or slowdown, but rather provoke multidimensional practices of time and new meanings of temporalities’ (Wajcman, 2008: 72).

Prior studies have identified the ways mobile phones have altered various realms of life, such as parenting (Madianou and Miller, 2011), religion (Nwankwo, 2022) and health (Lupton and Jutel, 2015; Patrick et al., 2008). Some of this research has explored the ways mobile phone use has reconfigured the meaning of being social and the formation of social bonds, highlighting the multiple forms of sociality as well as the role of mobile phones in their construction (Caliandro et al., 2021; Lee, 2013; Palackal et al., 2011; Wong, 2020). Despite this growing literature, researchers know relatively little about how and why people use mobile phones in bed or about the role phones play in sociality in the context of sleep.

Given that sleep takes up approximately a third of most people’s lives, these omissions in the literature prevent a full understanding of ‘what it means to be social’ (Sujon and Dyer, 2020: 1126) and how technology is enmeshed with sociality (Long, 2015). The concept of sociality can be defined in multiple ways but here I adopt Long’s (2015: 855) definition, which centres on the state of existence in a ‘dynamic and continually emergent matrix of relations within which subjects are continually interacting and bearing upon each other in a process of coproduction’. To understand the various forms of sociality, sociologists and anthropologists should examine how entities behave within, and towards, the matrix of relations in which they are embedded, paying attention to not only humans and group situations but also nonhumans and times in which individuals are alone (Long, 2015: 855).

Mobile Phones and Sleep

Most studies exploring mobile phones and sleep have focused on the negative impact of phone use on sleep outcomes. The main (identified) mechanism underlying these effects in adults is exposure to blue light, a form of light that influences the natural sleep–wake cycle, which is one of the essential circadian rhythms governing body processes (Exelmans and Van den Bulck, 2019; Tosini et al., 2016). In addition, studies have found links between nocturnal use of electronic media (not necessarily via smartphone) and poorer sleep quality and quantity (Kaur et al., 2021). Most prior studies have centred on adolescents and children (Bergfeld and Van den Bulck, 2021; Caumo et al., 2020; Scott et al., 2019), although some have examined adults as well (e.g. Bhat et al., 2018; Exelmans and Van den Bulck, 2016a, 2016b).

Another group of studies related to mobile phone use and sleep suggests that smartphones can be addictive and their use is linked to FOMO (fear of missing out), indicating that they draw people to use them even when they do not intend to do so (Olson et al., 2022; Reer et al., 2019). Thus, some people may be unable to resist the temptation of smartphones and find themselves helplessly ‘used’ by these devices whether during the daytime or at night. These explanations for mobile phone use near bedtime, however, overlook the role of human agency, and therefore further empirical research is needed to capture the full range of reasons for using mobile phones around sleep.

While there is a lack of sociological research on reasons for smartphone use around sleep, a related vein of research has explored the nexus between technology and sleep, recognising the commercialisation and commodification of sleep in neoliberal capitalist societies (Barbee et al., 2018; Nansen et al., 2021; Williams and Boden, 2004). Studies in this area have focused primarily on pharmaceuticals (e.g. Coveney et al., 2019; Gabe et al., 2016; Moloney, 2017) or digital self-tracking devices and mobile health (e.g. Berg, 2017; Elmholdt et al., 2021; Lyall, 2021; Williams et al., 2015). While studies on the latter topic discuss some of the ways in which digital transformations can change people’s experience, understanding and management of sleep, they assume the uptake of self-tracking technologies (despite the absence of accurate estimates of usage rates [Ko et al., 2015]), overlooking people who do not monitor their own sleep but use mobile phones for other purposes.

Still, these studies, in conjunction with others (e.g. Hsu, 2017; Meadows et al., 2018; Zarhin et al., 2022), provide important insights into sleep as a practice and process that involves both humans and nonhumans. Some of these studies draw on socio-material perspectives to unravel the sleep–wakefulness divide. For example, Nettleton et al. (2017) challenged the sleep–wake dichotomy by conceptualising sleep not as a category opposed to wakefulness, but rather as a ‘fluid, relational, dynamic and situated’ process, which they described as ‘the sleep multiple’. The authors coined the term ‘sleepfulness’ to imply that sleep can be understood as ‘an assemblage of associations of human and non-human actants’ (e.g. cigarettes, phones, beds) that ‘fill’ and enable sleep (Nettleton et al., 2017: 785).

The current study draws on and contributes to this literature by adopting a new materialist perspective inspired by scholars such as Barad (1998), Bennett (2005) and Lupton (2018) to analyse how and why people use mobile phones in and around sleep. According to this perspective, sensing and embodied assemblages of humans and nonhumans generate relational connections (interactions with and responses to other humans and nonhumans and the formation of bonds and affects) and agentic capacities, which can produce effects, make a difference and initiate action (Bennett, 2005; Lupton, 2020). In this view, agency is always ‘relational and enacted, generated in, with, and through interactions and entanglements of people with technologies as part of more-than-human worlds’ (Lupton, 2018: 2). As Lupton’s (2020) research shows, this perspective facilitates a more detailed understanding of the potentialities and challenges that emerge as humans live (and in this case, sleep) with and through digital devices.

Data and Methods

Data Collection and Analysis

This article is based on sleep diaries and in-depth interview data collected between February 2020 and February 2022, ¹ which was the first phase of a larger research project on the sociocultural patterning of sleep in Israel. Data collection began after obtaining ethical approval from the Institutional Review Board at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Haifa (approval number 396/19).

Participants were selected using a purposeful sampling design that ensured that the sample was homogenous in certain respects (employed Israeli citizens aged 40–60), in order to facilitate saturation, but heterogeneous with respect to variables deemed analytically important, including gender, ethnonationality, socio-economic status, religion and religiosity, and quality of sleep (Guest et al., 2006; Sandelowski, 1995). The intention was not to create a statistically representative sample, but rather to create a sample driven by theoretical concerns (Clarke, 2005). The larger study explores how several factors, including technology, affect sleep quality, quantity, practices, arrangements and perceptions. The sample was limited to individuals in midlife because sleep varies across the life course and social roles, responsibilities and expectations are more likely to affect sleep during midlife than at other times (Hislop and Arber, 2003).

Participants were recruited in multiple ways including via Facebook and WhatsApp groups, flyers posted on public message boards in cities located in Israel’s northern and central regions and snowball sampling. All participants gave informed consent. Interviews with Israeli Jews were conducted in Hebrew and those with Arab/Palestinians were conducted in Arabic. The excerpts in this article were translated into English by the author. The text uses pseudonyms to guarantee anonymity. Interviews lasted between 41 minutes and 2 hours, 23 minutes, with an average length of 1 hour, 31 minutes. The interviews were semi-structured and covered an array of sleep-related topics, including mobile phone use near bedtime and in bed. Specifically, participants were asked how and why they used their phone, where they kept the device and why, and whether they thought their mobile phone use had any effects on their sleep. Additionally, at the end of each interview, participants received two paper forms – a night-time sleep diary and a daytime napping diary – and were asked to fill them in for seven consecutive nights and days. Participants received a small monetary payment in compensation for their time and effort.

Data were collected and analysed following principles of constructivist grounded theory, including simultaneous collection and analysis of data, constant comparison, coding and memo writing (Charmaz, 2014; Thornberg and Charmaz, 2014). I used ATLAS.ti (version 9), a software designed to assist with qualitative analysis, to conduct line-by-line open coding, exploring all the theoretical possibilities in the data and developing close familiarity with the data. I then grouped and densified codes into categories and identified relationships between codes and between categories, moving from a descriptive level to a more abstract theoretical level. During this process, several categories emerged, including ‘waking up with mobile phone’, ‘sleeping with and through mobile phone’, ‘staying connected through mobile phone’ and ‘mobile phone as “personal time”’. I conducted comparisons across groups (based on gender, ethnonationality and religiosity as well as quality of sleep), however, there were no systematic differences based on these categories. I wrote memos discussing each category both separately and together, moving back and forth between the data and both pre-existing and developing theories, and constantly contemplating the questions: what is going on here and why? The emergent theory and concepts are presented below.

Sample Characteristics

The final sample included 66 Israelis aged 40–60 (mean age = 49.52). Twenty-eight were Arabs (13 men and 15 women; seven Christians and 21 Muslims) and 38 were Jews (19 men and 19 women). Among the Jews, 18 described themselves as religious or ultra-Orthodox, while among the Arabs, 14 described themselves as religious. Thirty participants classified their household socio-economic status (SES) as medium–high or high, whereas 36 reported it was medium–low or low. Most respondents were married at the time the research was conducted (n = 54) and had at least one child (n = 62). Forty-four participants categorised their quality of sleep as good or very good, while 22 categorised it as bad or very bad. Only seven participants had sought medical care to treat sleep-related problems and six of these respondents had received a diagnosis (obstructive sleep apnoea).

Findings

While many respondents acknowledged that mobile phone use near bedtime might have a harmful effect on their sleep – and several even criticised themselves for this habit – they also described interacting with their mobile phone near bedtime and in bed as an enjoyable pastime with personal and social benefits. Before discussing how respondents engaged with their mobile phones, I describe the meanings respondents ascribed to sleep and to ‘good sleep’. ²

Notions of Sleep and ‘Good Sleep’

All respondents viewed sleep as an important and essential part of life that allows them to continue to function. Sleep was repeatedly described as ‘rest’, a required ‘time-out’ that enables people to ‘carry on’ and fulfil their social roles and obligations. Amira expressed this view clearly:

Even an iron machine must be allowed to rest, so all the more so a human system that contains blood and life and needs to rest through sleep. Sleep is what allows a person to rest and return to work.

Respondents referred to sleep as a respite from the ‘race of life’, a break from their hectic schedules and the stress of life. As Dorit explained, ‘Sleep is a time-out [laughs]. Enough! Stop! Let’s just stop for a second, let’s stop the race, stop the race!’ Although some respondents lamented the biological need for sleep and said they wished they could do without it, they still acknowledged the necessity of sleep.

When asked what constitutes ‘good sleep’, most respondents emphasised quality rather than quantity. They repeatedly described ‘good sleep’ as uninterrupted, continuous sleep after which the person wakes up refreshed. Nihaya, for example, remarked:

What is good sleep? When I feel in the morning that I really ‘dived in’ (غطست) all night without waking up. In the morning, I feel satisfied, that, wow! I sank deeply [into sleep] and did not feel anything; I rested.

Similarly, Amal said, ‘For me, sleeping in your own bed and waking up in the morning is a good night’s sleep. When you don’t wake up at night at all, and don’t feel the night passing, that’s good sleep.’ As these comments indicate, good sleep is seen as ‘a dive’ or ‘sinking’ into unconsciousness, and thus a lack of any feeling or awareness. Good sleep entails complete disengagement from the world – it is a non-experience. In a sense, then, good sleep is lost time.

Importantly, while respondents acknowledged the significance of sleep and its necessity for their well-being, functioning and performance, and they viewed good sleep as an absence, they also explained that taking a complete ‘time-out’ from their lives was not always possible because some social roles and duties persist into the night and others resume soon after. As the following sections show, mobile phones helped to ensure respondents could stay connected to the social world and reoccupy social roles in a timely fashion without forsaking sleep, which they deemed vital.

Using Mobile Phones Near Bedtime and in Bed

In their sleep diaries, participants were asked to report both the time they woke up and the time they got out of bed. The period between these two times, which Exelmans and Van den Bulck (2015) called ‘rise latency’, averaged 25 minutes in the focal sample (median = 21 minutes). Respondents reported spending some of this time using their mobile phones. Participants were also asked to record the time they got into bed and the time they started trying to fall asleep. This period, which Exelmans and Van den Bulck (2017) termed ‘shuteye latency’, averaged 24 minutes in the focal sample (median = 16 minutes). Most respondents reported spending a large portion of this time on mobile phone use. Respondents usually used mobile phones in bed after spending time with their partner and/or other family members whether inside or outside of the couple’s bed. The following sections contain analyses of participants’ accounts of these mobile phone interactions.

Waking up with a Mobile Phone: Stopping the ‘Time-Out’

Almost all respondents used their mobile phone as an alarm clock. Thus, the phone helped them make their way back into consciousness and served as a safeguard, ensuring that they could fulfil their roles as workers and parents within the socially prescribed timeframe. As a result, respondents felt they could not turn off their cell phones overnight. Mamdouh explained:

I sometimes turn my cell phone off during the day, but I can’t do that at night. Why? Because I use it as my alarm clock and I don’t want to miss my waking time, because I must go to work.

Likewise, Dunia remarked:

I leave my cell phone beside me first and foremost because it’s my alarm clock. I need it to wake me so that I don’t stay asleep [. . .] I can’t be late for work because I have a lot of responsibility. I have to be in class at 7.30 a.m. because there are parents who bring their children early to class, so I’m afraid that I’d be late. Sometimes, out of concern, I even dream that I arrive late to work.

Many respondents offered similar answers, stressing the importance of waking up in time to go to work, to wake their children and get them ready for school, or to engage in other time-sensitive activities. Almost all respondents – even those who boasted about being able to wake up without an alarm clock – used an alarm clock to ensure they did not oversleep.

Respondents explained that using their mobile phone as an alarm clock required them to keep it close for two main reasons: first, many wanted the option to hit the snooze button and sleep a few more minutes before rising. Second, respondents did not want to disrupt the sleep of others, and thus attempted to turn off the alarm as quickly as possible. As Ramee explained:

I keep the phone near me to turn off the alarm clock so that I don’t wake my family members. I wake up before they do. If it is far from me . . . [then] when I am very tired, I cannot turn it off right away, it takes me a minute or two to turn it off. I don’t want to disturb their sleep.

Indeed, most respondents kept their mobile phone close to them while they slept, usually inside or on top of their nightstand. Only six participants said they intentionally kept their mobile phone outside their bedroom. Although several expressed concern about the radiation the device might be emitting, most had not considered replacing their mobile phone with a traditional alarm clock, indicating the considerable extent to which the mobile phone is integrated into not only everyday life but also ‘everynight’ life. The vast majority of participants could not imagine separating from their mobile phone even (or especially) at night.

Seeking Information and Communication: In-Bed Phone Time as ‘Personal Time’

Most participants used their mobile phones in bed before going to sleep, often surfing news media websites and social networking sites (mostly Facebook and WhatsApp). Many respondents noted that while they knew using their mobile phone before bed might harm their sleep, it was still a desired activity they could not forgo. For example, Samira commented:

Before I go to sleep, I start browsing my phone, to see what I missed. Sometimes it can draw me in and I might fall asleep with it. Sometimes I just check my phone but then move on to reading a book [. . .] I can go to sleep without it but I don’t allow myself to do that because I feel I missed out. Sometimes I can watch the news on Facebook or the internet. I don’t always get to sit in front of the TV and watch the news, so I at least get to see what happened today. I miss things; I want to know what these things are.

Like Samira, several others mentioned replacing book reading with mobile phone reading before bed, explaining that the latter allows them to stay updated on current events and remain connected to other people in a way books cannot. Respondents expressed a desire to stay informed, to know what is happening in the world beyond their household, and thus maintain a connection to that world. Gathering this type of information on a regular basis is one aspect of being social in contemporary society, where information-seeking in general and news media consumption (purposeful or incidental) in particular have become central to daily life and to how individuals understand both themselves and others (e.g. Boczkowski et al., 2018; Livingstone and Markham, 2008; Ruthven, 2019; Sun, 2021). Thus, for the respondents, mobile phones have opened new agentic capacities to interact with the wider society, even while lying in bed.

For many, bedtime was the most suitable or even the only time for this type of personally tailored pursuit of information and communication. This constraint is evident in Gila’s statement:

I usually use my mobile phone for about half an hour before bed although I know it’s unhealthy; it’s not good. I think it also interferes with sleep. Lately I’ve noticed this, that it’s an absolutely disruptive factor [. . .] But it’s the only time I have some quiet at home and the ability to sit and read the things I want to read. When I wake up in the morning and see that I can’t go back to sleep, I use my phone as well. I read all the posts on WhatsApp [. . .] It’s not spam, it’s definitely communication. And I have small groups I participate in. So, this is my time, my quiet time when no one is bothering me saying, ‘You’re on the phone again?’ [laughs], ‘Mom!’

Like Gila, other respondents also described bedtime as ‘my time’ or personal time that they could devote to themselves and their own interests. For example, Rania shared:

[I use my phone] when I finish all my chores. If I have a little free time, I feel it is my time. I do it after I finish everything – everyone ate, the house is neat and organised, there’s no mess, and I finished everything I need to do.

As the usual socio-material burdens recede and sociocultural norms allow a withdrawal from social obligations, bedtime becomes a true ‘free time’. During these moments, respondents feel free to use apps on their cell phone, surf the web as they please or simply communicate with others either within or outside their social circle. Shoshi described this time as her ‘escapism’:

I surf Instagram before sleep. I love it. It’s my escapism. [. . .] Because I’m a design freak, I look at home designs and home styling all the time. I really, really like to see pictures and enjoy the pictures of creative people. [. . .] So, I just surf half an hour, an hour, just really, really enjoying looking at the pictures, what people create, the ideas people have. And, you know, I’m on many WhatsApp groups. This group, my workplace group, my friends’ group. [We send] inquiries: ‘How are you?’, videos, nonsensical stuff and jokes. I’m also very socially involved in many areas, so you know, I answer questions, I communicate with family members. I’m on the phone a lot. A lot.

At bedtime, then, respondents interact with the mobile phone to consume information and entertainment, as well as communicate with others, in a variety of ways. As they attest, they do so at their own pace, decelerating time in a way that often aids sleep. As the following section shows, mobile phones serve as a gateway to escapism from the ‘real world’ that, in turn, supports escapism through sleep.

Engaging to Disengage: Sleeping with and through a Mobile Phone

Many respondents said that reading on their mobile phone made them drowsy and led them into slumber. For example, when asked if she thought using a mobile phone in bed affected her sleep, Zahra responded:

Zahra: On the contrary, it makes me sleepy.

Interviewer: So, you think using the cell phone has a positive effect?

Zahra: Yes, it does. When I read on my phone, I start feeling sleepy, so I quickly put the phone aside and fall asleep.

Although the interview question did not imply whether the possible effect on sleep would be positive or negative, Zahra’s answer indicates that she believed the assumption was that the effect would be negative and she responded by emphasising that her mobile phone actually facilitated sleep. Other participants offered similar replies, reflecting an awareness of the current discourse on the negative impact of mobile phone use in bed, and presenting an alternative view of mobile phones as aiding sleep: reading at their own pace and ‘slowing down’ through the use of mobile phones, they clarified, helped to induce sleep.

Additionally, most participants said that they sometimes experienced a rough night or a period in which concerns and worries kept them up at night. Even when alone, the social and personal world affected them, preventing them from falling or staying asleep. In response, they often reached for their mobile phones. The devices helped ‘distract’ them from their racing thoughts and thus helped generate sleep. Some used meditation apps or listened to relaxing music and sounds (such as raindrops or ocean waves), while religious Muslims often listened to verses from the Quran. However, most respondents simply read on their phones (websites or social media posts). For example, Nasir said that when his anxieties surfaced at bedtime, he often reached for his phone:

To get away from the scenarios that run around in my mind, I open the phone. I turn it on while still in bed and I move it to the side so that the light is not directed towards my wife’s face [. . .] I sometimes surf Facebook or play a game to distract myself.

Engaging with his phone allows Nasir to disengage from his troubles until sleep is restored. However, he tries to protect his wife’s sleep while using his phone, acknowledging that the phone’s design could disrupt her sleep by stimulating her senses. Similarly, when asked if the mobile phone affects her sleep in any way, Nurit responded:

I don’t think it affects me. Well, it does, but in a good way because it allows me to neutralise my thoughts, to evacuate my mind [. . .] It allows me to think about something without feeling anything; it keeps me busy so I don’t think about other stuff.

Other respondents also mentioned that mobile phone use encouraged sleep by replacing anxiety-producing thoughts about their personal issues and biography with thoughts about more distant, emotionless topics. As these accounts make clear, interacting with the mobile phone thus helps reduce worries and concerns in a way that facilitates sleep, turning mobile phones into friends rather than foes of sleep.

Staying Connected While Protecting Sleep

Many participants said they could not completely retire from their social duties at night because they had to be available to others, usually family members (such as children and elderly parents) but also employers and colleagues. In their narratives, respondents indicated that sleep does not entirely relieve people from social obligations. When asked why she did not silence her mobile phone and why she kept it next to her at night, Betty replied:

I have children [laughs]. If I don’t do that, how will I know what’s going on with them? [. . .] I leave the cell phone on because I know I have a responsibility for other people, especially if they don’t sleep in the house with me.

Other participants also described relying on their mobile phones to manage their non-stop responsibilities. Benny remarked:

The truth is, they say the mobile phone interferes with sleep, but I’ve never thought about it. And you know, I’m comfortable that it’s next to me in case there’s a message or someone suddenly looks for me. You know, I prefer that it would be close to me.

Likewise, Giora commented on the need to be available while sleeping, ‘I put the cell phone beside me, first and foremost, because that’s my alarm clock. But also, what if my mom suddenly calls and she needs something, you know?’ The proximity of the device comforted respondents. They knew they could be reached and thus would be available to those who needed them. In essence, their mobile phones allowed them to continue to fulfil some of their social duties at night.

While landline telephones served this purpose in the past, respondents’ narratives revealed that mobile phones might do so in a way that better protects sleep: communicating via messages (instead of phone calls) and being able to do so while still in bed (rather than being forced to get up) meant less disruption to their sleep. These affordances allowed respondents to ‘hang on to their sleep’, as some put it, and not fully awaken while communicating with others. Nadeem recalled corresponding with his son who no longer lived in the household:

[When he slept away from home,] I was worried all the time. I would sleep and then wake up and check to see if he had sent a message saying that he had returned to the dorms or if he had sent a message to say, ‘I want to sleep at my friend’s’. Those messages calmed me down and I could go back to sleep.

Many others also expressed concerns about their children spending time away from home. The mobile phone allowed participants to stay connected, even if communication was de-synchronised. Children sent messages on their own time and respondents checked them when they awoke. Picking up the nearby phone and reading messages did not require a high level of alertness, thus allowing these parents to communicate while remaining partly asleep and then quickly sink back into unconsciousness. Talia explained:

[When my son is out], I open the phone to see if he wrote. I specifically ask for the sake of my sleep that they [her children] write ‘I am back’ or something to let me know and save me from this worry that I open the phone and don’t see any messages.

To further protect their sleep, some respondents changed their phone settings to allow only certain messages or calls to go through (e.g. by muting some WhatsApp groups and unmuting others or by switching the phone to airplane mode but keeping Wi-Fi enabled). Respondents tinkered with the device in an attempt to maintain communication with chosen others while disengaging from everyone else. Still, participants acknowledged that their attempts to protect sleep were not always successful and sometimes their phones prevented them from going back to sleep.

Discussion and Conclusion

This study joins previous efforts (e.g. Sujon and Dyer, 2020; Wong, 2020) to elucidate how technological transformations create new opportunities for being social by examining a previously unexplored topic – how and why people use mobile phones before bedtime and in bed. In the current case, sleep is assembled through a network of associations between human and nonhuman actants including mobile phones, the body, sleep norms, friends/family members (children, parents and partners), family/work responsibilities, capitalist companies, worries and concerns, and more. This human–mobile phone assemblage generates agentic capacities that allow respondents to engage in a digitally enabled form of what I call sleepful sociality. The concept of sleepful sociality is meant to capture the ways in which people forge, support or depart from, social connections and relations with significant others, broader social networks, institutions and the wider society, around and during sleep. Whereas sociological studies discussing modern sociality implicitly assume a wakeful subject, this study sheds light on the form of sociality that takes place in and around sleep. Such an examination is necessary to enrich the understanding of what it means to be ‘social’.

This study discusses a specific type of sleepful sociality, one enabled through human–mobile phone entanglement. As the analysis shows, intra-actions (Barad, 1998) between respondents and their mobile phones allow respondents to both participate in and withdraw from a range of social relations and obligations. The mobile phone serves as a lifeline to the world outside the bedroom in two specific respects: first, it brings respondents back into consciousness in time to fulfil their social roles and duties as workers and caregivers, thus enabling sleep as a ‘time-out’ from social life. Second, the mobile phone helps people to stay informed and connected to their close social circle (e.g. via SMS and WhatsApp), broader social networks (e.g. via Facebook) and society at large (e.g. via Twitter and news media). Sociocultural norms regarding bedtime and the affordances of the fleshly human body come together to create opportunities for and consequences of human–mobile phone entanglements: respondents feel they can withdraw from the world just before and at bedtime, allowing them to carve out a period of ‘personal time’ during which they can use their phone to seek information and communication based on their personal interests and away from the watchful eyes of others. However, this engagement with the phone supplants a deeper introspective engagement with the self. The mobile phone, in fact, allows respondents to escape their own self, biography and mind. Thus, this digitally mediated form of ‘personal time’ might differ (in character and implications) from other forms of ‘personal time’ or ‘me time’, which are aimed at self-reflection. Further, while respondents connect to others outside the bedroom, they often disconnect from those lying next to them in a way that can affect partner intimacy and the nature of a couple’s time together.

According to respondents, this engagement with the device is conducted at the individual’s own pace, allowing them to ‘slow down’ and disconnect from their (often disturbing) real world in a way that reduces worries and concerns and facilitates sleep. While doing so, respondents attempt to avoid disrupting the sleep of other household members with the sound and light emitted by the mobile phone. During sleep itself, the mobile phone allows sleepers to stay available to significant others about whom they worry, especially at night. This availability, coupled with the ability to receive messages from significant others, reduces anxiety and engenders sleep.

Nevertheless, the affordances of the device sometimes hinder sleep. The respondents reported that they were occasionally tempted to stay awake and delay sleep longer than intended. Their phones sometimes drew them in against their wishes, keeping them alert instead of somnolent. Hence, while respondents used the device to ‘act upon time’ (Moroşanu and Ringel, 2016; Moroşanu et al., 2020), the device (and the companies producing it or collecting data through it) ‘used’ them at the same time (Agger, 2011; Zuboff, 2020). Further, although respondents appreciated the newly gained capacity for constant connectivity, it is possible that with time, this capacity will further undermine a valuable right – the right to disconnect. As in the past, the rise of possibilities may be accompanied by an increase in expectations and demands, thus further undercutting the social acceptance of sleep as ‘the most radical form of institutionalized periodic withdrawal’ (Schwartz, 1970: 487). As Turkle (2017: 281) concluded, ‘we warm to machines [. . .] when their affordances speak to our vulnerabilities’, however, these machines might create new vulnerabilities. While the consequences of these shifts have yet to unfold, this study makes it clear that mobile phones have already altered users’ experience and management of sleep as people sleep with and through these devices. Given these changes, future sociological research should continue to explore people’s relationships with mobile phones, moving beyond diurnal engagements and into nocturnal and especially sleepful ones.

This study suggests additional novel directions for further research. Future quantitative studies should use representative samples to examine the generalisability of the findings presented here, and additional research should explore sociocultural similarities and differences in sleepful sociality, digitally enabled and otherwise. Specifically, sociologists and anthropologists of sleep could use this novel concept to explore and understand within- and between-country differences in the ways sleepers engage with the social world. These scholars can continue the current endeavour – which built on previous attempts (see, for example, Hassoun and Gilmore, 2017; Nettleton et al., 2017)) – to deconstruct the sleep–wake divide and highlight ways this construct does not match lived experience. In real life, sleep spills into wakefulness and vice versa, blurring the boundaries between the wakeful world and the dormant world. Finally, the data support Exelmans and Van den Bulck’s (2015) call for a re-evaluation of current sleep survey questions and measurement scales. Survey designers should reconsider and refine the concept of sleep latency (usually defined as the time it takes to fall asleep) and ask additional questions of respondents – simply reporting the times at which participants get into and out of bed as well as the amount of time it takes them to fall asleep does not provide a full picture of the experiences that surround sleep now that mobile devices have become valued, and influential, bedfellows.