A survey by Yahoo claims that, thanks to the wonders of multitasking,
people are cramming 43 hours of activity into a single day:
"While using the Internet, people are also doing two or three other things, often watching TV or talking on the phone," said Mike Hess, global director of research at OMD, part of Omnicom Group.
As the amount of distractions, from an always-on BlackBerry-driven work ethic to a myriad types of media and communication, increases, one legacy activity incompatible with multitasking—sleep—is getting squeezed. Not surprisingly, this has spawned
a US$20 billion sleep industry helping those racing on the treadmill of competitive consumerism trade some of their disposable income for a few of the winks they've been missing out on. This can take the form of luxury sleeping pods in busy cities (where US$14 will buy you a lunchtime nap) to US$20,000 luxury beds guaranteed to give the best sleep experience possible.
When I first read about the sleeping pods I thought they were a good idea, if only because they provided somewhere to go with no distractions. Today's (city) world is so full of people it's impossible to go anywhere and get away. Even at home you have to suffer hearing the neighbours or traffic. You're paying for the benefit of being truely alone. That's hard to get and it seems, worth paying for.
I did assume though that the pods would not be truely soundproof and wouldn't provide what I was looking for.