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Short Wave

Teen sleep is getting wrecked by more than just phones

06 Mar 2026

Transcription

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

0.031 - 13.905 Unknown

Support for NPR and the following message come from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, investing in creative thinkers and problem solvers who help people, communities, and the planet flourish. More information is available at hewlett.org.

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14.594 - 25.901 Regina Barber

Hey, Shore Wavers. Regina Barber here. And Katie Ariddle. And today we have our biweekly science news roundup featuring the hosts of All Things Considered. So here with Katie and I, this time, is Scott Detrow.

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26.001 - 31.995 Scott Detrow

Hello. This is one of my favorite segments to do. I hear we are talking about the fact that apparently teens are still not sleeping enough.

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31.975 - 45.63 Katie Ariddle

Yeah. And new insights on a potential megathrust earthquake in the Pacific Northwest. And ancient recipes discovered in prehistoric pottery. All of that on this episode of Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR.

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Chapter 2: Why are teens not getting enough sleep?

50.977 - 65.924 Unknown

Support for NPR and the following message come from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, investing in creative thinkers and problem solvers who help people, communities, and the planet flourish. More information is available at hewlett.org.

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65.944 - 67.787 Regina Barber

So, Scott, where would you like to start?

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67.835 - 74.584 Scott Detrow

Regina, I feel like usually you're taking me deep out into the cosmos, but let's just start with like, you know, something much closer to home.

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74.704 - 77.588 Regina Barber

Right, that teen in my house that doesn't talk to me?

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77.709 - 79.691 Scott Detrow

The surly one who's apparently not getting enough sleep?

79.892 - 97.656 Regina Barber

Yes, yes. So researchers studied the sleep habits of high school students from 2007 to 2023, and they found that the number of teenagers getting insufficient sleep, that's less than seven hours a night, is on the rise. Now it's more than three quarters of these high school students.

97.636 - 110.328 Katie Ariddle

These bad sleep habits were true across most demographics, races, genders, grades. And Scott, some of these kids are getting less than five hours of sleep a night. The results are in the medical journal JAMA.

110.869 - 112.152 Scott Detrow

Any sense why this is happening?

112.317 - 129.516 Katie Ariddle

Well, the researchers tried to get at that. This data is from the CDC's Youth Risk Behavior Survey. This is a survey that more than 120,000 U.S. high schoolers take every two years, answering questions about health risk behaviors like alcohol use, cannabis use, and sexual activity.

Chapter 3: What does recent research say about teen sleep habits?

324.152 - 342.151 Katie Ariddle

There's a lot of other factors to think about. Population density and proximity to the ocean, for example. We talked to another earthquake scientist not involved in this study, Chris Goldfinger. He says that the potential for catastrophe because of this earthquake zone wasn't really understood until the mid-1980s.

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343.192 - 348.638 Katie Ariddle

And these kinds of studies will help us better understand and prepare for earthquakes. We just need more of them.

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348.618 - 353.363 Scott Detrow

All right, let's shift to our third and final topic, prehistoric diets.

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353.478 - 369.477 Regina Barber

Yeah, I'm excited about this one because scientists know a lot about agricultural societies and like the way they used to eat back then, but not much about what hunter-gatherers used to eat. And a new study in the journal PLOS One takes a look at that. A group of scientists analyzed ancient pots from roughly 4,000 to 8,000 years ago.

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369.877 - 381.291 Katie Ariddle

These pots were from all over northern Europe, from what is now Denmark to western Russia. And what they were looking at specifically was old food remains caked on the inside of these ancient pots.

381.271 - 386.137 Scott Detrow

I'm going to say I feel better that our ancient, ancient, ancient ancestors were also not washing their dishes.

386.317 - 387.999 Regina Barber

But it's good for science.

388.319 - 388.9 Scott Detrow

You're welcome.

389.08 - 406.941 Regina Barber

Right. Because the researchers found food crusts left over from a whole bunch of ancient meals. But one of the ones they found the most interesting was a stew of fish mixed with Gelder roseberries. These bright red berries are normally bitter, but they taste totally different. They have a totally different flavor once they're cooked. Yeah.

Chapter 4: What factors contribute to insufficient sleep among teenagers?

453.56 - 463.478 Katie Ariddle

They did. Oliver Craig, a senior author on the paper at the University of York, felt that while some of the dishes were a bit flavorless, he thought the berries were tasty.

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463.739 - 469.75 Maureen Deneau

But he says... What people see as tasty changes massively depending on the cultural context.

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469.831 - 471.494 Regina Barber

So true. It brings me back to childhood.

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472.757 - 474.78 Scott Detrow

Taste change, minute to minute, day to day.

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475.041 - 486.743 Regina Barber

Yeah. And if you want to hear more about this Cascadia fault earthquake, growing up, we called it the big one. We did a whole episode on the science behind it. We'll link to that in our show notes. And Scott, thank you so much for being on our show.

486.942 - 489.769 Scott Detrow

Anytime. It is always super fun and I learn a lot. Thank you.

490.109 - 494.961 Regina Barber

You can hear more of Scott on Consider This and Pierre's afternoon podcast about what the news means for you.

495.482 - 500.935 Katie Ariddle

And for more science stories just like this one, follow Shortwave on whatever app you're listening to.

502.535 - 510.909 Regina Barber

This episode was produced by George Marie Smith, Arun Nair, and Burley McCoy. It was edited by Christopher Intagliata and Rebecca Ramirez. Tyler Jones checked the facts.

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