Emerging adults of color face significant sleep disparities, yet we know less about underlying mechanisms. The goal of the current study was to investigate whether racial discrimination was associated with hours of sleep and sleep dissatisfaction. Further, we tested whether social media and television/digital media use moderated these associations. Participants included 464 emerging adult students of color (i.e., students who identified as Black/African American, Asian, Latine, Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander and/or American Indian/Native Alaskan) in college. The results indicated that television/digital media use was associated with more hours of sleep, and social media use was not significantly associated with either sleep outcome. The relation between racial discrimination and hours of sleep was moderated by television/digital media use. Simple slopes analysis indicated that when individuals had low television/digital media use or average television/digital media use, racial discrimination was associated with fewer hours of sleep, but this relation was not significant at high levels of television/digital media use. Further, the relation between racial discrimination and sleep dissatisfaction was significantly moderated by social media use. Simple slopes analysis indicated that racial discrimination was associated with more sleep dissatisfaction at low or average levels of social media use, but this relation was not significant at high levels of social media use. Findings suggest that social media and television/digital media use may serve as coping tools for college students of color navigating the negative effects of racial discrimination on sleep.
Williams et al. (Mon,) studied this question.
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