“I was half asleep when I did that!”: we’ve all heard the phrase but now it appears people texting while fast asleep is on the rise as mobile users sleep beside their phone. ‘Sleep texting’ occurs when mobile users text incoherent messages to friends or family, while unconscious, reports Daily Mail.
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And what’s worse is users have no recollection of sending the SMS at all.
“We have had patients who have reported sending text messages to their friends and family while asleep,” says Dr David Cunnington, sleep specialist from Melbourne Sleep Disorder Centre.
“It is one of those things that happens, but it is very rare, and certainly not a common trend.”
But why is it occurring at all? The phenomena is due to our ‘always on’ society where work demands emailing, talking and texting at increasingly irregular hours, he says.
“People are doing so much during a normal day that it can mean that they feel like they’re “on call” even at night.”
“Because it’s so easy to receive emails constantly, and get notifications from smartphones, it becomes more difficult for us to separate our waking and sleeping lives.”
Mobile users need to switch off their device and sleep without it even in the room when hitting dreamland.
“If your phone is on the nightstand, then it will be more difficult to have a good night’s sleep without feeling compelled to reply to a message or check your Facebook account.”
But emailing while asleep is far more common and can also have more far reaching consequences, he warns.
“Emails can be sent to work colleagues and have much more serious consequences, whereas text messages are more likely to be accidentally sent to a friend or family member, so people aren’t as likely to complain of a problem.”
