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“In understanding sleep patterns, you really need to consider the socio-cultural and environmental factors and context in which people are sleeping,” Knutson says. To Knutson, the study highlights the challenges of examining how a single factor - access to electricity - affects sleep.

Surprisingly, it was the Tengua villagers who slept worse, likely because they slept on mats on the floor and slept with more family members to a room.

Access to electricity may change when we go to bed but “it doesn’t necessarily have to lead to poor sleep quality,” the Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine’s Knutson says. But they didn’t lose any sleep or sleep poorly as a result - their sleep timing simply shifted later. Indeed, Milange residents went to bed and woke up almost an hour later than people in Tengua. It stood to reason that more light at night could disrupt sleep patterns, says study author Kristen Knutson. Light sets our internal clocks, signaling that it’s time for activity. The residents were taking part in a study led by an international team of researchers examining how access to electricity affects sleep. Others lived and worked about 20 miles away in the small market town Milange, the only locale in the larger district with access to electricity. Those living in the rural village of Tengua spent long days in the fields where they grew maize and tended livestock. The wrist-worn devices recorded their movement, sleep, and light exposure as they went about their day. Lighting Up the Nightįor two weeks in 2016, residents of two towns in Mozambique donned activity trackers. But, work and school schedules haven’t really changed.

In doing so, it’s pushed our sleep timing back and expanded the range of individuals’ sleep preferences. Access to electricity has offered new opportunities for things at night.