JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Sleep deprivation in adolescents is a common but serious issue in public health. Internet search activity related to sleep problems can provide relevant information for understanding the epidemiological characteristics of the adolescent population. Here we investigated the seasonal and weekly pattern of internet search activity on ‘insomnia’ in adolescent and adult populations in South Korea.

Objective:

We aimed to reveal whether the adolescent population exhibits distinct temporal patterns in internet search activity of ‘insomnia’ compared to the adult population, which might be associated with subjective sleep disturbance linked to the academic schedule of middle and high schools (e.g. summer and winter vacation).

Methods:

We extracted the daily search volume of ‘insomnia’ in the adolescent (13~18 years old) and the adult population (19 ~ 59 years old) for the years 2016~2019 using ‘NAVER DataLab’, which is based on the most widely used internet search engine in Korea. The time series of the search volume was decomposed into the slow annual trend and the fast weekly pattern using the Fast Fourier Transform, and then the relative search volume of both groups was compared across days in a week and months in a year.

Results:

The adolescent population exhibited much larger seasonal variations in the search volume when compared to the adult population (coefficient of variation: 0.414 for adolescents vs. 0.064 for adults). The search volume of ‘insomnia’ in adolescents was particularly higher in January, February, and August, which are academic vacation periods in Korea (p < .001). In the weekly pattern, adolescents showed particularly increased search volume on Sunday and Monday (p < .001). When we set the young adult population (19~24 years old) as an additional control group, the same patterns were observed between the adolescents vs. the young adults.

Conclusions:

The adolescent population exhibited distinct seasonal and weekly patterns in their internet search on ‘insomnia’ compared to the adult population, which might be closely associated with the school schedule. The adolescents’ subjective sleep problems are more likely to be affected by the delayed sleep phases with the disrupted daily routine during vacation periods and weekends.