App Review: Sleep Cycle

I'll be honest.  I'm a bit of a "Productivity and Lifestyle" app junkie.  I have downloaded many, many apps that offer to make life a little easier to manage or motivate you to become better in some way.  Among the apps that I've look at are Everest, Day One, Epiclist, FitBit, Lose it!, Sunrise Calendar, OOHLALA, Lift, and many others.  Each of those apps brings to the table a different concept designed to help us become better people.

Although it is probably more qualified to be listed under the "Health" apps category, the idea behind Sleep Cycle definitely has the potential to develop a more productive lifestyle.  Why?  Because it deals with sleep patterns and waking up at the time that is literally best for your body.  If I were to sum this app review up, I would say this is an AWESOME APP.  Let's talk about what makes it awesome.

Sleep Cycle works by using the iPhone's built in accelerometer to monitor and track movement during the night in order to determine which sleep cycle you are in.  After one night you are able to identify your sleep quality for the night and the total time in bed.  Now, that by itself would be pretty awesome.

However, it does more!

As you start to log more nights of sleep in consistently, you the app starts to give you graphs of the different statistics such as:

Time in Bed

Sleep Quality

Went to Bed

Time in Bed Per Day of the Week

Sleep Quality Per Day of the Week

Sleep Notes

The Alarm

The alarm feature is one feature that the app really emphasizes.  Because the app is able to monitor sleep patterns, it is able to determine what the best time to wake up for the person using the app.  Personally, I typically feel a lot better when the app wakes me up because it feels more of a natural wake up.  The only problem is that the alarm is a little too soft to hear for some people.  

The app wakes you up in between two times of half hour increments, whichever time is most natural based on your sleep patterns.

Sustainability:
Sleep cycle has been out for several years now, the copyright being 2010.  Since then it has been featured various times with publications and media outlets such as CNN, Wired, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, BBC, The New York Times.  It has a five star rating for the current version with 2,308 ratings and a four and half star rating for all version with 63,581 ratings.  From what I've seen that is pretty impressive.  I predict that the app will continue to receive updates (the last being January of this year) and get better.  It already has a pretty loyal following, the few people that I know who have used it only say positive things about it.

Usability:
The app is pretty straightforward.  It asks you what time you want to wake up (as shown above) and all you need to do is place it on the side of your bed (typically under your covers) near where you sleep.  You do have to leave the phone plugged in to the charger all night, but it's probably not anything we don't do anyway.  The only problem I ran into was trying to find how to use the "notes" feature, which allows you to keep track of what you did right before going to bed, or even what you had done that day that might be relevant to your sleep quality.

Value:
The app does cost $0.99 to buy and download, but it is well worth the small price.  The actual site mentions that similar alarm clocks that can monitor the body's natural sleep cycles cost about $200.  Personally, I think it was a good investment for what it does, and it's something that I use almost everyday.

A few drawbacks that have been mentioned is:
- You have to keep it plugged in all night, or it will drain you battery
- You do have to bring it into your room, meaning possible disturbance from calls and texts
- The accelerometer picks up movements of everything, including bed partners and pets
- Sometimes the alarm will wake you up earlier than you had wanted to because of the 30 minute increments
(I found these concerns here)

Conclusion:
I have enjoyed this app very much, although sometimes I forget to use it.  However, the app doesn't punish you for missing days.  Understanding my sleep patterns has been interesting and it has helped me be more aware of what I might be able to do to get better sleep.  Overall, I feel that it has been a very good investment for how much it costs and for what it has the ability to do.

Assessment 1

How public opinion may have been influenced through social media and new devices -
This is an interesting topic to consider because for a good space of time, this was a hot topic on social media. I would say the role that social media has played in this whole debate is pretty significant, at least in the eyes of the public.

Personally, the first I even heard of the whole issue was when I had logged on to Facebook, as has become the daily routine, to check and see if anything was new. I kept seeing graphics, posts, and pictures of different sides of the issue. Mind you, the majority of my contacts fall under a few categories - conservative Mormons, Filipinos, and the occasional friend with liberal views. Personally, the reality that was created for me based on my social media involvement has been that what has happened has been a somewhat negative step, given that most of what had been posted was not very positive regarding the issue. Not discriminatory, but a little worried.

Delving into the issue a little deeper, I found a Facebook page with a fair amount of traffic, that was definitely in favor of marriage equality in Utah. I imagine, if you had liked that, there would be a steady amount of pro-marriage equality posts streaming down your Facebook feed. However, aside from the very obvious pages created either for or against, I think what was most prevalent were the articles that were being re-posted by some friends. The articles detailed what was happening, and if anything sped up the process of information dissemination.

Based on what we had discussed, depending on which side of the fence a person happens to fall on, you gain a really narrow view of the subject. Obviously, most of the people you're friends with will share a lot of your ideological views, therefore what they post will only fuel the fire, strengthening views you probably already have. It really has created an even wider gap between the two prevalent ideologies. Furthermore, it seemed, according the articles and different posts that I saw on my feed, that although there is a lot of negativity regarding the issue, the loudest voices were those who were pro-marriage equality. Even the pictures used for articles were of LGBT members, picketing, smiling, or just being generally happy. Even if I was just scrolling my Facebook feed, and didn't care to read the articles, it made everything seem like a very positive thing. That contrasted with the different "worried" posts was an interesting contrast.

What you think about technological determinism's role in this -
I supposed it could be argued that technological determinism's role in this issue has been the quick dissemination of information, and the ability to frame ideas and event in a specific way. Hearkening back to what I had talked about earlier, similar to the way the feeling of an article can be somewhat framed by pictures that are used to accompany it, the sharing of information, for or against an issue, can very much frame the way we see an issue. Similarly, given that Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Vine are all things that people use on a daily basis, what is being posted on those feeds could very much become the reality of the situation for someone. It is shaping the way that people view the reality of a situation because, as Twitter and Facebook have become, constant streams of information are being received and processed.

How social media have contributed to the push for action, either in efforts to petition for or against marriage equality in Utah, and to organize for civil protest -
Pointing again back to what I had said earlier, Facebook pages like the one I shared earlier and this one have played an interesting role in contributing to the push for action. Actually, just logging on to the Equality Utah page I found this little graphic:



The ability for people to send invites to events, to share about upcoming events, to let others see where they can rally together for their cause has been pretty big. I really think some of the images that were used to depict what rallies looked like, with people being happy, and all the signs, has been huge in giving people the courage to come forward and join. Additionally it gives the appearance that there are many people supporting the cause, whether that's really the case or not.

In conclusion -
Social media has played a really big role in the whole issue, with first of all providing somewhat of a narrow view of one side. There is a social filter that has been created as a result of social media, something that doesn't exist in newspapers or even online articles. These filters can providing feeling and perceptions of an issue that may or may not represent it's reality. Furthermore, social media has allowed for quick dissemination of information, and as mentioned, the ability to frame the reality of an event. Above all, however, social media has also become a means of rallying people behind a cause and portraying the cause as powerful and effective.

Who is driving whom?

It's easy to look at how technology is seemingly driving (ha, I get the pun now with the cars... yeah) the development of our culture and society.  I spend a lot of time (a lot more than I should) on social media and I definitely have seen a particular culture arise from our increased connectivity and people's desire to share personal and significant events with many, many others (a majority whom they are not very close to).  To some extent this can be very disturbing, as referenced by all the post-apocalyptic movies that have been produced where technology has totally overrun humanity.  However, I'm not sure that is how things are going turn out.  Furthermore, I'm not entirely convinced that technology is the driving force behind the change in our culture.

Humans have this nagging tendency to want to believe that the way that things are going to turn out is completely out of our control.  We seem to want to pass on the ownership of actions, and ultimately our destiny to other things - misfortune, luck, karma - anything to be able to say, "you know, there wasn't really anything I could do about it."  It seems like a silly concept, given that we try to control so many factors in life, but for as long as our history has been recorded, humans have pointed to the sky and asserted that "there is something else at work here."  While I believe in a God and other doctrines pertaining to deity, I also believe that we have a lot more control over things than we think we have.  We are not objects to be acted upon, but agents to act (sound familiar?).

That being said, I can see similar patterns in technological determinism.  Where people assert that our culture has been shaped by the technology that we have adapted, it seems that just as likely, we have adapted technology to match changes that we, ourselves, have facilitated.  It is we who are in the driver's seat, and technology is there to make the ride a little (or in some cases, a lot) better.  I agree it has increased the rate of speed at which we can share ideas and produce goods and services, but I don't believe that it's the driving force behind cultural change.  We've shaped technology to meet our insatiable wants and needs.  Furthermore, it seems that technology has been developed to get us closer to what we think we want.  To make things easier and more convenient.

So, no, I don't really buy into the idea of technological determinism.  I think we should take both ownership and responsibility for the change we introduce and cultivate in our culture.  Technology will always be present, but first and probably forevermore it will be an extension and fulfillment of what we want as humans.