Here's Why Technology Is Destroying Your Productivity
We need sleep. It's a fact of life.
Sure, we could stay up for hours upon hours but, eventually, our bodies would force us to rest. Over the past decade there's been a surge in the development of productivity-focused technology. Yet, despite these developments, they do nothing to work with our sleep instinct. These products, albeit beautifully designed, show little regard for our need to rest.
Take the iPhone for example.
The first one was available in 2007 yet it took until early 2016 for Apple to roll out a night mode. This mode was designed to limit exposure to blue light, a light that can adversely affect your circadian rhythms and make it harder to fall asleep. It took Apple, a company known for fantastic UI/UE, nine years to implement.
"While we intuitively know that without proper sleep and rest we simply can't function, we see little regard for protecting sleep and rest in design of consumer products" said Behrouz Hariri, co-founder of Smart Nora, an anti-snoring device, and winner of the recent Shopify Build-A-Business Competition.
"I'd love to see an estimate of the number of hours of sleep and productivity lost over the last decade just because of blue light of our smartphone screens" he said. But what does sleep have to do with how productive we are? Turns out, a whole lot.
Sleep affects everything, from work performance and attention span length to how safe we are. According to a poll conducted by the National Sleep Foundation, almost 50 million Americans have some sort of sleeping problem or sleep deprivation that affected their work and home lives. 29% reported feeling tired, 36% reported actually falling asleep at work or behind the wheel and 20% reported having adverse effects on their intimate lives.
Sleep deprivation is also associated with impaired vision and impaired hearing. Some have even hallucinated due to lack of sleep. Mood swings have also been reported and it even affects the prefrontal cortex of the brain, which controls and regulates complex cognitive behavior.
People who also don't get a lot of sleep are more at risk for high blood pressure, abnormal hormonal behavior and an increase in stress. In short: less sleep means an increased propensity for illness and other problems.
Studies indicate that the light emitted from displays of smartphones, tablets and other mobile technology cause melatonin suppression, which affects our natural body clock. In fact, by using a self-luminous display for two hours before bed, you can suppress melatonin by 22%, making it harder to fall asleep sleep. As you can imagine, this over the long-term can have disastrous effects.
"Recently we are seeing a shift in how everyday products are designed" said Behrouz. "As designers, we are becoming more aware that our only duty is not designing for productivity. Designing for down-time, reflection time and recharging is going to become more and more important for products that are integrated into our lives" he said.
Nora is a non-invasive snoring device. You can learn more by visiting Nora's website here.
