GoKawiilBeing tired behind the wheel can be as dangerous as driving while drunk1. Yet, whereas showing up to work intoxicated can lead to dismissal, being visibly sleepy doesn’t tend to have comparable consequences — at least for now.
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As employers learn more about the productivity and safety costs of inadequate rest, might lack of sleep be treated as a sackable offence? And, if sleep can be enhanced to give workers wakeful benefits that go beyond those of a conventional night’s rest, might employers expect people to take such measures? These questions are not far-fetched.
Early attempts by companies to manage the risks from their employees’ poor sleep have already tested legal and ethical boundaries. In 2016, the Dutch Data Protection Authority investigated two companies that had provided employees with devices to track their activity, including sleep patterns in one case (see go.nature.com/4wwnzzx; in Dutch). The agency ruled the collection of such data impermissible, noting that they constituted sensitive health information and that employee consent could not be regarded as having been given freely, owing to the inherent power imbalance.
Digital systems that permit fine-grained monitoring of sleep are becoming increasingly widespread and accepted, as governments, health systems and insurers pay closer attention to sleep as an important public-health lever. Meanwhile, research and product development are shifting from merely measuring sleep and treating sleep disorders to enhancing sleep technologically, potentially altering expectations for what counts as healthy rest.
Once sleep becomes something that institutions can quantify, governments can frame as a public-health necessity and technologies can supposedly optimize, the stakes are raised beyond individual lifestyle choices and ethical questions come to the fore.
When does institutional support for better sleep turn into an expectation? Who will receive access to sleep enhancement and who will bear the costs of sleep deprivation? Who will be least able to refuse the offer of a better night’s sleep, despite it potentially being a means to subtle surveillance? Researchers, ethicists and policymakers must explore such concerns before the technology matures and is used more widely.
Why sleep loss matters
Sleep supports basic aspects of human life, including cognition, physical health, productivity, emotional regulation and even relationships, moral judgement and behaviour2–4. Yet, despite scientific consensus on the importance of rest, chronic sleep deprivation remains widespread.
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