by Seth J. Gillihan Ph.D.
Adequate rest is required for optimal performance, whether in the office or on the basketball court. So it makes sense that a recent study in the journal Sleep Health examined the effects of late-night tweeting on NBA players’ performance the next day.
Researchers from Stony Brook University led by Dr. Jason J. Jones examined the timestamps of over 37,000 tweets from 112 players and their performance in games the following day. Tweets were considered “late night” if they were sent between 11:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. The researchers weren’t interested in late-night tweeting per se, but were using it as an indicator of getting less sleep.
Performance variables included points scored, shooting percentage, rebounds, turnovers, and fouls. Only games taking place in the player’s normal time zone were included (e.g., East Coast teams playing on the East Coast) to avoid the confound of jet lag.
Analyses revealed that late-night tweeting was associated with fewer points scored, a lower shooting percentage, and fewer rebounds; however, players also had fewer fouls and turnovers following late-night tweets. Results were not significantly different for home versus away games. While these effects were statistically significant, they were relatively small (e.g., an average decrease in 1.14 points scored per game).
Importantly, players also tended to have less playing time after late-night tweeting—an average of 2 minutes per game, or about 8 percent less time. This finding helps explain the positive effect of tweeting on fouls and turnovers and the negative effect on points scored and rebounds, since there was less time for all these things to happen.
Shooting percentage, however, doesn’t depend on minutes played or number of shots taken, so having less game time can’t explain the average reduction in shooting percentage of 1.7 percent. That’s obviously not a whopping effect, although it could mean the difference in a close game between hitting versus missing a potential game-winning shot. The effect would be more pronounced the greater the number of players on a team who are awake in the middle of the night.
The researchers explain the reduced shooting performance as a predictable effect of sleep deprivation. As they note, sending a tweet is incompatible with being asleep, unless the player is using an automated social media account or has a proxy send tweets late at night. However, these factors would make it harder to explain the study’s findings, which are consistent with the effects of sleep deprivation.
Why would late-night tweeting have an effect on time played? The researchers suggest that coaches might be attuned to “subtle indicators of poor performance among those who have stayed up late the night before a game” (e.g., a low-energy performance in warm-ups) and be inclined to take them out of the game sooner.
Strengths of the study include its focus on real-world job performance, as opposed to carefully contrived laboratory measures like sustained vigilance. It also was conducted among a population that arguably would be difficult to recruit as research participants, using instead publicly available social media data. Accordingly, it was able to demonstrate the apparent negative effects of sleep loss even among elite athletes.
On the other hand, the authors acknowledge that we can’t know whether the decreases in performance were directly tied to being awake in the middle of the night, since some other variable (e.g., life stress) could account for the effects on both tweeting and performance.
While more research is needed, this study is an intriguing step both in its methodology and its findings and points to future possibilities in this area.
Jeff Thomas
Publisher • Opinion Columnist • Licensed General Contractor • Real Estate Appraiser • New Orleans
Jeff Thomas is the publisher of Black Source Media and one of New Orleans’ most direct voices on civic affairs, economic justice, and Louisiana politics. He writes from the intersection of experience and accountability — as a licensed general contractor,a tech company founder and executive with over 30 years experience, and a businessman who has worked across the city’s civic, media, and construction ecosystems for decades.
His Sunday column covers Louisiana legislative politics, insurance discrimination, housing policy, and the forces shaping Black community life in New Orleans and across the state. Thomas writes in the tradition of Black journalists who hold power accountable without apology — building arguments from data, delivering verdicts from evidence, and speaking to Black New Orleans with the directness the moment demands.
He is also the principal of Executive Appraisers Louisiana, an MBE-certified real estate appraisal firm, and EA Inspection Services, LLC, a government inspection services company. Black Source Media is his platform for the civic conversation New Orleans has needed and too rarely had.
Selected Articles by Jeff Thomas
Black Neighborhoods Pay the Highest Insurance Rates in Louisiana. Here’s What They Don’t Want You to Know.
They Didn’t Yell the N-Word. They Went to Law School, Bided Their Time, and Rewrote the Constitution Instead.
Vappie vs. Morrell: Why Does Justice Look Different in New Orleans?
The State Has the Money. New Orleans East Just Needs Them to Use It.
The Failure of Mitch Landrieu
Publisher — Black Source Media
Jeff Thomas
Publisher • Opinion Columnist • Licensed General Contractor • Real Estate Appraiser • New Orleans
Jeff Thomas is the publisher of Black Source Media and one of New Orleans’ most direct voices on civic affairs, economic justice, and Louisiana politics. He writes from the intersection of experience and accountability — as a licensed general contractor,a tech company founder and executive with over 30 years experience, and a businessman who has worked across the city’s civic, media, and construction ecosystems for decades.
His Sunday column covers Louisiana legislative politics, insurance discrimination, housing policy, and the forces shaping Black community life in New Orleans and across the state. Thomas writes in the tradition of Black journalists who hold power accountable without apology — building arguments from data, delivering verdicts from evidence, and speaking to Black New Orleans with the directness the moment demands.
He is also the principal of Executive Appraisers Louisiana, an MBE-certified real estate appraisal firm, and EA Inspection Services, LLC, a government inspection services company. Black Source Media is his platform for the civic conversation New Orleans has needed and too rarely had.
Selected Articles by Jeff Thomas
Black Neighborhoods Pay the Highest Insurance Rates in Louisiana. Here’s What They Don’t Want You to Know.
They Didn’t Yell the N-Word. They Went to Law School, Bided Their Time, and Rewrote the Constitution Instead.
Vappie vs. Morrell: Why Does Justice Look Different in New Orleans?
The State Has the Money. New Orleans East Just Needs Them to Use It.
The Failure of Mitch Landrieu