Social Alarm: Personal Social Network-Empowered Shared Alarm Clock Method to Effectively Overcome Sleep Inertia

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to design and validate a new alarm clock method called ‘Social Alarm’. It promotes better wake-up experience, which extends the traditional passive self-struggling wake-up experience into a mutually beneficial activity by sharing an alarm clock with friends who are willing to go together. The effectiveness of this method was verified through a series of multistage user research such as a survey for user needs analysis, focus group interviews, and usability trials. The Social alarm method was implemented as an Android application. It was found that most people have been aware of the sleep inertia problem and the majority of the study participants considered the Social Alarm technique as an effective solution. In addition, the user trials revealed that Social Alarm provides better wake-up experience than the conventional digital alarm clock.