Teen Sleep Crisis: Canadian and American Adolescents Are More Sleep-Deprived Than Ever

A growing body of research is raising alarm bells about how little sleep today’s teenagers are actually getting and experts say the problem is only getting worse.

A landmark study published in the journal Pediatrics tracking over 400,000 American teenagers between 1991 and 2023 has revealed that adolescent sleep has hit an all-time low. Across every age group, sleep duration declined steadily over the three-decade span, with only 22 per cent of older teens reporting they got at least seven hours of sleep per night a figure that falls well short of what health guidelines recommend.

The findings are striking not just for how bad things are now, but for how long they have been heading in this direction. The data predates the smartphone era entirely, suggesting that the roots of the problem run deeper than social media alone though experts are quick to point out that digital technology has made a bad situation considerably worse.

North of the border, the picture looks similarly troubling. A Canadian study released in January 2026 found that roughly 37 per cent of young people between the ages of 12 and 17 are failing to meet the country’s minimum sleep recommendations. The Public Health Agency of Canada advises that teenagers aged 14 to 17 need between eight and ten hours of sleep each night.

Jean-Philippe Chaput, a professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Ottawa and senior scientist with the Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group, puts the number at around one in three Canadian teenagers.

“It’s about one third of the population so it’s more around 30 per cent not sleeping enough, and 70 per cent in the good zones of eight to ten hours,” he said.

While 70 per cent meeting recommendations may sound encouraging on the surface, health experts stress that the trend is moving in the wrong direction, and that even those within the recommended range often report poor sleep quality.

Part of the explanation, researchers say, is biological. Rebecca Robillard, co-chair of the Canadian Sleep Research Consortium and director of the Clinical Sleep Research Unit at the University of Ottawa, points to the natural developmental changes that occur during adolescence.

“Because of normal developmental changes, teens have a biological clock that runs later. This makes it physiologically more difficult for them to fall asleep early and wake up early,” she explained.

Andrew Holmes, founder of Sleep Efficiency and a registered polysomnographic technologist, echoes this, noting that the adolescent transition brings a natural shift in the body’s circadian rhythm an internal clock that, during the teen years, pushes sleep and wake times progressively later.

“What many parents don’t realize is that as teens transition to adults, there is a shift in their sleep architecture and sleep-wake cycle,” Holmes said. “Due to this natural shift, they are staying up later but still need eight to ten hours of sleep to be optimal for peak performance.”

But biology is only part of the story. Smartphones, social media, packed schedules, and early school start times are conspiring to rob teenagers of rest at a critical stage of their development.

Holmes identifies excessive screen use as among the most significant culprits, with many teens falling into a cycle of late-night scrolling driven by anxiety over missing out on online conversations and social updates a phenomenon commonly known as FOMO, or Fear of Missing Out.

Chaput agrees, pointing to the way social media directly delays bedtime.

“It delays bedtime by doing so, they go to bed way later than they’re supposed to,” he said. “Social media is so important for teenagers because they can chat with their friends, they post pictures, but they form their identity to be independent during this time.”

He acknowledges the bind this creates: telling teenagers to simply put their phones down ignores how central social platforms are to how young people build relationships and a sense of self.

Compounding the problem is the fact that school starts early often far too early given what science tells us about teenage sleep biology.

The average school start time in Canada sits around 8:30 a.m., while in the United States it can be as early as 7:45 a.m. For teenagers whose bodies are naturally wired to fall asleep later, these early starts mean chronically cutting their sleep short on weekday mornings.

“If school starts at 8 a.m., you need to wake up at least at 6:30 a.m., so you’re sleep-deprived,” Chaput said plainly. “It’s tough to get your eight to ten hours.”

The conversation around later school start times has gained traction in parts of North America, but widespread policy change has been slow.

What makes the issue particularly pressing, experts warn, is that poor sleep during adolescence does not stay in adolescence. The habits formed during the teenage years late nights, inconsistent schedules, screen use before bed tend to follow people into adulthood.

“The teenage years are when many long-term behavioural patterns are formed, including sleep routines,” Holmes said. “If chronic sleep deprivation, inconsistent schedules and late-night screen use become normalized early on, those habits often persist later in life unless there is a conscious effort to change them.”

The ripple effects are already visible in the adult population. A national survey conducted by Leger in March 2026 found that 41 per cent of Canadians are getting fewer than seven hours of sleep per night, with 57 per cent saying they struggle to fall asleep and 71 per cent reporting difficulty staying asleep. Remarkably, nearly 65 per cent of those who do get seven or more hours still reported trouble with sleep onset or maintenance.

For Chaput, the numbers reflect a culture that has systematically undervalued rest.

“Almost everything is linked to our sleep. We sleep about one-third of our lives,” he said. “I think we need to value more sleep in our society and I think the teenage years are a period where we don’t value sleep enough.”

With research now spanning more than three decades and pointing consistently in one direction, the message from sleep scientists is clear: this is not a phase teenagers will simply grow out of. Without meaningful change in school policy, in how families treat bedtime, and in how society talks about sleep the next generation of adults may be even more exhausted than the last.