How Technology Steals Your Sleep
Reed Hastings knows we’re addicted. Badly so.
The Netflix CEO tossed out one of the most revealing comments in tech recently, during the “ideas festival” known as Summit LA last week.
Speaking about our tendency to binge-watch Netflix shows, he remarked: “You get a show or a movie you’re really dying to watch, and you end up staying up late at night, so we actually compete with sleep… And we’re winning!”
Now that’s a BIG idea. Let’s unpack that stunning statement, shall we?
First, Netflix’s biggest competitor is not Amazon or Hulu or HBO. It’s sleep. As in the thing we all need to be functioning human beings.
And secondly, Netflix is winning this nightly battle! We are forgoing the one thing we all must have in order to watch episode after episode of Stranger Things or House Of Cards, at least for some part of the evening.
Now here’s another stunning statistic. According to Facebook’s own financial disclosures, the average person gives up 50 minutes of their time every day to spend on the social network’s various platforms: Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger. According to Google, mobile YouTube users spends 40 minutes on average session, up more than 50% year-over-year!
These are just average numbers. For some people — and we all know a few like this — it seems like every waking moment is spent on Facebook or Instagram or YouTube.
And every day, Facebook, Google, Snapchat, Netflix, and the rest are working on creating ever more addictive features to keep us hooked.
Don’t get me wrong. I love Netflix and will continue to use it. I believe Facebook is important as a way to stay in touch with people that you care about and share your experiences. But those companies want you to stay on their apps and websites for as long as possible, which for some people is pretty much nonstop.
Now consider these statistics. The average time we spend on Facebook is more than we spend on these activities, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data:
- Grooming ourselves (28–46 minutes)
- Cleaning the house (26–45 minutes)
- Reading (13–29 minutes)
- Thinking and relaxing (8–30 minutes)
That last one is pretty amazing.
And while we’re doing all of these things, many of us are on our phones!
U.S. consumers now spend five hours per day on their mobile devices. In fact, we’re now spending more time on our apps than staring at our big-screen TVs.
But it’s not necessarily because we’re watching less TV. We’re just watching Netflix on our phones!
Cue Reed Hastings again.
The point I’m trying to make here is that technology companies depend on us, the consumers, to consume their content. Even at the expense of taking care of basic necessities, like sleep.
“Habits are good for business,” writes Nir Eyal, the author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products. “In fact, many industries could not survive without them. The incentive systems and business models of the companies that make habit-forming products require someone gets hooked. Without consumer habits, these habit-forming businesses would go bust.”
I don’t mean to suggest that technology is bad or that technology companies are evil. unGlue is a technology company. I’ve built tech companies my entire career. Technology or the Internet, for that matter, are not the problem.
It’s a matter of finding and creating balance.
As smart consumers, and especially as parents who want to raise kids with healthy screen-time habits, we need to be more thoughtful about how we’re giving away our time.
Time is your most precious commodity. No matter how wealthy you are, you can never make more of it. It’s the great equalizer.
We all have only 24 hours to spend every day.
Can you use it more wisely? Can you find more balance in your viewing habits? Can you be better role models for your kids? Can you teach them to be smarter consumers online?
Maybe spend more than 8 minutes thinking about this…
By Alon Shwartz,
CEO & Co-founder of unGlue and a father of three
http://www.unGlue.com
unGlue is the world’s first collaborative technology that empowers people to manage their digital distraction and screen addiction
