Improving Sleep-Wake Behaviors Using Mobile App Gamification

Abstract

Gamification can be used to encourage people to perform challenging tasks. Gamification can also be useful in altering unwanted habits and enhancing subjective well-being. Everyday health is affected by sleep-wake habits to a significant extent. Therefore, we can come across gamified products and mobile applications related to subjective well-being and sleep/wake activities. This paper presents a study investigating whether gamification can be used to affect sleep-wake behaviors in a positive way. The paper presents a quantified relationship between wake-up, go-to-sleep, work (start) hours and gamified features. For this purpose, a gamified mobile alarm clock application called the Sleepy Bird was designed, created and tested in a user study. The study included twenty-six participants in an A-B experimental set-up: thirteen participants using a gamified version and thirteen participants using a non-gamified version of the app for two weeks. The participants who used the non-gamified version had a poorer motivation to begin their day at the required times in comparison to those who used the gamified version. It was also observed that gamification made favorable modifications to participants' sleep-wake behaviors.