Sleep Deprivation at Princeton

Written by
Princeton Research Virtual Days
May 22, 2020

Watch the video that Matthew Marquardt '21 presented on sleep deprivation at Princeton.

 

Princeton University students are known as some of the brightest and hardest working students in the country. They fill their schedules down to the minute and manage to fit in more activities than one would think is possible. At a certain point, something must give and sleep is often the first thing to be sacrificed. This leads to a perpetually sleep deprived community. It is no secret that Princeton students don’t get enough sleep. In 2018, students self-reported to only get an average of 6.8 hours per night.

 

However, the question is why we don’t get enough sleep. Is it really that we are too busy to sleep? Or is there something else going on? In order to answer this question, I conducted quantitative and qualitative research to help determine what factors lead to this culture of sleep deprivation with the goal of identifying barriers to getting higher quality and quantity sleep.

 

Matthew Marquardt is advised by Sheila Pontis, Entrepreneurship Program Specialist, Computer Science and the Keller Center for Innovation in Engineering Education, Lecturer in Computer Science and the Keller Center for Innovation in Engineering Education.