Technosleep Frontiers, Fictions, Futures Reviewed

Technosleep by Catherine Coveney and Al is published by Palgrave Macmillan. It is a deep dive into sleep, along with the evolution of the technology around it. The book then focuses on defining sleep as we know it, and moves onto sleep’s partnership with technology both in the present and also for the future. See more about the book here.

Technosleep Frontiers, Fictions, Futures Reviewed

This nonfiction book is written primarily by a team of highly qualified sociology academics, and starts by bursting headlong into questions challenging me about what sleep actually is? It got me thinking about the full scope of sleep and all that it entails. It then sets out the underlying theme in the book as the entanglement between sleep and technology, moving through a summary of sleep, technology, and its concepts. There is also some explanation offered for the technical structure of the book, citing prominent research studies and methods of investigation that were used to formulate the study findings and the resulting outcomes of the book.

Chapter 1 continued with this grounding: What is sleep? It offers an answer along with a brief history and challenges us to think about what sleep means to us as individuals and as a community in the 21^st century. It then introduces technology, which leads to the conceptualization of ‘technosleep’. It includes some fascinating connections made around types of sleep and what we ‘do’ to help us sleep. This includes the biomedicalization of sleep and its increasing commercialization, which indicates a deepening of this entanglement between sleep and technology.

Chapter 2 moves into the cultural context of technosleep, the multiple nature of what sleep means, what technosleep means, and the use of technology with the intent to help or hinder a good night’s sleep. This perceptual exploration is subjective, yet it came across to me as balanced in its framing and presentation.

Chapter 3 explores digital tracking technologies and their effect on this entanglement between sleep and technology as we seek to understand what sleep means to us. It also sets out to differentiate between sleep and the cultural effect that sleep tracking technologies have on our definition of a good night’s sleep.

Chapter 4 moves into the exploration of sleep in many areas, including the pharmacological and neurological areas. This exploration explores the development and commercialization of technologies around them.

Chapter 5 focuses on the non-human aspects of sleep and how sleeping technologies can be socially disruptive. It also explores the multiple natures and effects of sleep technologies in the entanglement between sleep and technology, with a view to their contrasting and differentiating each other.

Chapter 6 explores the science fiction genre’s take on the future of technosleep, which is confrontational while favoring the pre-technological concept of a good night’s sleep. Chapter 7 resonates with the questioning tone of the book’s beginning by challenging us on the future of technosleep. It looks at the future of technosleep and the role of technology across many areas, from biomedical to technology and science to popular culture. It also explores the developing story of sleep inequality and what it means to get a good night’s sleep across several social classes and segments of society, implying that the future’s reach of technosleep may not be as widespread as we believe.

Chapter 8 concludes with an analysis summary to present the author’s open-ended arguments that we will alter the way we ‘do sleep’ by incorporating more and more sleep-related technologies to improve our sleep experience. The argument explores the multiple relationships that exist in and around sleep via technology, along with how non-polarized and objective approaches to individual technologies are important to unlock their potential without becoming lost in someone else’s fears around them. It concludes with the perils of this technological adoption and the risks of increasing rather than reducing sleep inequality. It also questions the role of technology in sleep disorders and its ability to impact us in the way it was intended to.

All in all, the book was well written and highly structured. This, in my view, is a key component in the presentation of a very nebulous area of socioscientific development that is a key aspect to our future happiness and success as a society. For those interested in sociology or any social science, this book is a must-read. For those who value continuous improvement and benefit from relevant insights into modern living, this book should also be on your reading list. It asks a lot of questions throughout the book, but it leaves you with a greater understanding of the area. This, for me, is a takeaway that will only get better with time.

More about the book

This book draws on a variety of substantive examples from science, technology, medicine, literature, and popular culture to highlight how a new technoscientifically mediated and modified phase and form of technosleep is now in the making – in the global north at least; and to discuss the consequences for our relationships to sleep, the values we accord sleep and the very nature and normativities of sleep itself.

The authors discuss how technosleep, at its simplest denotes the ‘coming together’ or ‘entanglements’ of sleep and technology and sensitizes us to various shifts in sleep–technology relations through culture, time and place. In doing so, it pays close attention to the salience and significance of these trends and transformations to date in everyday/night life, their implications for sleep inequalities and the related issues of sleep and social justice they suggest.

John Mulhall @johnmlhll | john@maolte.ie is a writer with Irish Tech News for over 6 years and also Founder, Writer, and Engineer with Maolte Technical Solutions Limited. You can learn more about John and his new company at https://maolte.ie

See more stories by John here and more reviews here.