Sensible Sleep: Measuring Alarm and Snooze Behavior in Teens Using Wearables and Smartphones

Pilot data suggests that working professionals and college students routinely use alarms and snooze. Alarm usage and snoozing is associated with several negative health biomarkers including lighter sleep, higher resting heart rate, and reduced sleep duration. It is unclear when this behavior is established, but it is likely in the teenage years when chronic sleep restriction begins to effect a large percentage of Americans. We will ask teens about psychological traits (e.g. personality) and snoozing behavior in a repeated measures design. In addition, we will implement a smartphone based intervention which notifies teens when they are awake past their minimum bedtime for adequate sleep. throughout the study, we will monitor sleep and heart-rate via wearable. From this data, we will establish the prevalence of alarm and snoozing behaviors in teens. We will determine what demographic, psychological, and behavioral traits predict snoozing, and if there are any differences in health biomarkers (e.g. sleep duration, resting heart rate)between snooze and/or alarm users. We will use data from the wearables and smartphones to generate features that can detect snoozing, and will validate them against self-report. Finally, we seek to determine if alarm and snoozing behavior can be reduced via a smartphone intervention aimed at increasing sleep duration.