There are some things about life that are certain, such as the sun rising in the morning, the ocean lapping at the shore, the Cubs blowing a playoff series …

And teenagers losing sleep to video games, TV, music players and other technical distractions.

Yet in Australia, this fact about teens seems a revelation. A new study released last week by the Australasian Sleep Conference found that up to 50 percent of the 348 teens surveyed Down Under for this research were wired in one way or another just before dozing off for the night, and that staying connected cut deeply into their sleep patterns.

So deeply, in fact, that “a lot of kids are reporting that they’re tired when they wake up and there are quite a few reporting they’re sleepy during the day,” research leader and professor Kurt Lushington told the Herald Sun in Melbourne.

He’d rather they disconnect and wind down upon hitting the sack, so that they have a better chance of getting more and deeper sleep.

Which is a lovely thought, but wholly unrealistic, because kids are kids and they cling to technology like dust on a Swiffer. And more important, they’ve been doing it for decades.

Game Guy remembers when he and his friends stuffed transistor radios into our pillows and nodded off to the sounds of Dexys Midnight Runners, or left our TVs glowing well past prime time to catch “Monty Python’s Flying Circus.” Sometimes we even slipped into slumber still on the phone and awoke with the deep impression of the receiver on our faces.

Yes, you can guess from the references how far back this behavior dates, but it was something we picked up from generations before us.

It’s an uwritten rule of teen life to defy our parents’ expectations, particularly those attached to sleep, diet and exercise. You’d think researchers would know this already — especially the ones with teenage children — and spend their study time and dollars more wisely.