Electronics provide us plenty of entertainment, but they might also be hurting our sleeping patterns according to a recent study.

According to a study conducted at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, people who use electronic devices such as smartphones, ipads and tablets before bedtime take a longer time to fall asleep and spend less time in the deepest stage of sleep, the REM (rapid eye movement) stage. The study also alluded to the idea that the negative effect on sleep patterns caused by electronic devices could lead to serious health issues down the line.

The study was conducted using a dozen adults. Over the span of two weeks, the adults were charged with the tasks of reading from a tablet before they went to bed for a week, and then reading printed books in dim lighting before they went to bed for the same amount of time. The study showed that the adults that read from the tablets took longer to fall asleep and ultimately spent less time in the deepest stage of sleep.The study also showed that those who read from tablets were sleepier the next day than those who read printed books.

According to the researchers, the cause of the lack of sleep is believed to be rooted in the lighting that different electronic devices produce. The blue-light emissions from electronic devices causes people to have a drop in melatonin, which is the hormone that leads to people feeling sleepy. A lack of melatonin can ultimately lead to several types of cancer.

While ipads were the source of the study, researchers deduced that the results weren’t exclusive to just ipads; instead, the results of the study can apply to any electronic device that produces blue-lighting. So that would include smartphones and tablets as well. The one electronic device that was excluded from the discussion was the Kindle e-reader, which was compared more closely to a printed book because it does not emit light.

Nowadays, a majority of Americans have at least one form of electronic device in their bedroom, whether it be a phone, laptop, television or something else. While the results of the study probably won’t steer most people away from using electronics before they go to sleep, people might want to take the findings of this study seriously because researchers believe that the lack of sufficient sleep could have long-term negative effects on a person’s health.