America’s Sleep Deprivation Problem Might Be Solved By Self-Driving Cars

America is losing sleep over losing sleep.

According to recent studies, nearly one-third of Americans get less than 6 hours of sleep per night.

Believe it or not, the recommended amount of sleep that we ought to be getting is about seven to nine hours a night, though it sure seems like many people don’t have that kind of luxury allowed in their frantic daily schedules.

Big deal, you might be mumbling, so what that lots of people aren’t getting enough sleep.

In fact, it used to be that cheating on sleep and not getting much snooze time per night was a badge of honor. We were often told that the world’s top performers prided themselves on getting a mere four hours of sleep a night. Only lazy people stretched their sleep time to six or more hours.

If you wanted to keep up with the Jones’s, you had to stop whining about lack of sleep and just push yourself to the limits.

Taking a nap during the day was verboten and sneakily done by wimps only.

And the motto that was supposed to run our lives was that you’ll be able to get plenty of sleep once you’re dead, thus no need to waste time now on getting some shuteye.

The consequences of cutting corners on sleep are notably quite alarming.

Records show that people with sleep deficiencies are more prone to getting into accidents. These are accidents of all kinds, including while at the job or even when driving your car to or from work.

People that obtain less than the recommended amount of sleep time are often readily irritable and can launch into unexpected tirades or fights. They can turn their home life into a horror show by taking out their exhaustion on those close to them. Heart conditions are worsened by a lack of needed sleep. Etc.

Importantly, your overall health is put into heightened jeopardy simply due to a sleep under-count.

In recent years, our attitudes about sleep have shifted, moving away from the bravado of avoiding sleep and becoming instead an embracing of getting the right amount of sleep.

You might say we are experiencing a reawakening on the topic of sleep.

There are tons of mobile apps that you can download and use to embolden your sleep tactics and strategies. Online videos exist aplenty that will provide soothing sounds and images, lulling you into a sleepy state. Companies have opted to create special sleep zones in the office area, including stocking darkened rooms with futuristic looking sleep pods.

Of course, some of these efforts to help you get more sleep are at times uttered out of both sides of the mouth.

On the one hand, a company says that you ought to get at least eight hours of sleep per night and can grab a catnap at the office in case you need to do so. But, in the same breath, firms are telling you that you need to be on-the-clock 24×7 via your smartphone, responding to emails and text messages within moments of receiving them.

How can you get any kind of quiet and continuous sleep if you know that at any moment your smartphone will hearken you to answer instantly and you need to be seemingly always on-alert and aware of what’s happening at work?

Plus, consider the daily drive that you likely undertake for getting to the office each day.

If you live in any major city or work in a bustling locale, the odds are that you need to get up before the sun rises so that you can try to avoid the dreaded traffic on the freeway. At the end of the workday, you perhaps spend another hour or two driving home. All this driving is not only stressful, but it also cuts into the amount of time that you have per day to do other tasks.

When you add up the things that you believe need to be undertaken each day, and when the number is higher than the amount of wakefulness time that you currently have allotted yourself, you typically choose to adjust that which seems easiest to reduce, namely the amount of time you have to sleep.

It’s an easy equation and a (seemingly) no-brainer decision.

Do you push back on the other responsibilities and duties, or do you silently cut back on your sleep time?

Nobody will know or need to be convinced about letting you diminish your sleep time. Trying to cut down on your other tasks is much harder, having to negotiate with others and find a means to do less, but the sleep deprivation angle is straightforward and a no-fuss option.

As already mentioned, you’ll ultimately pay the price for cutting down on your sleep time, though that’s not something readily apparent at first, and anyway, you assume that you can exist on bare-bones sleep since you are one heck of a rough-and-tough person (there’s that bravado again!).

Here’s an intriguing question: Could the advent of true self-driving cars potentially solve America’s sleep deprivation problem?

Let’s unpack the matter.

The Levels Of Self-Driving Cars

It is important to clarify what I mean when referring to true self-driving cars.

True self-driving cars are ones that the AI drives the car entirely on its own and there isn’t any human assistance during the driving task.

These driverless cars are considered a Level 4 and Level 5, while a car that requires a human driver to co-share the driving effort is usually considered at a Level 2 or Level 3. The cars that co-share the driving task are described as being semi-autonomous, and typically contain a variety of automated add-on’s that are referred to as ADAS (Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems).

There is not yet a true self-driving car at Level 5, which we don’t yet even know if this will be possible to achieve, and nor how long it will take to get there.

Meanwhile, the Level 4 efforts are gradually trying to get some traction by undergoing very narrow and selective public roadway trials, though there is controversy over whether this testing should be allowed per se (we are all life-or-death guinea pigs in an experiment taking place on our highways and byways, some point out).

Since semi-autonomous cars require a human driver, there is nothing notable about such cars being able to alleviate or mitigate the sleep deprivation problem.

It is crucial to point out that in spite of those human drivers that keep posting videos of themselves falling asleep at the wheel of a Level 2 or Level 3 car, do not be misled into believing that you can take away your attention from the driving task while driving a semi-autonomous car.

You are the responsible party for the driving actions of the car, regardless of how much automation might be tossed into a Level 2 or Level 3.

Self-Driving Cars And Reclaiming Sleep

For Level 4 and Level 5 true self-driving cars, it might be prudent to consider how their adoption could aid in overcoming the sleep deprivation issue.

First, keep in mind that with true autonomous cars there is no need for a human driver. Everyone inside a driverless car is a passenger.

Per nationwide statistics, we are putting in about 70 billion driving hours per year in the United States, all of which would eventually (presumably) get converted into passenger time.

While inside a self-driving car, you’ll have additional marvels of technology, including 5G high-speed Internet access. You can play online games to your heart’s content. You can watch real-time streaming videos and catch up on those movies or TV shows that you enjoy watching.

During a driving journey, you could interact with others that might be inside your self-driving car, since much of the time these will be ridesharing service driverless cars, or you could use the Internet to connect with colleagues at the office or anywhere around the world.

In short, you could potentially be quite productive while inside a self-driving car.

Or, you could sleep.

That being said, let’s agree that sleep can be just as productive as many of those other activities that I’ve just listed.

If you use an hour of your daily commute time to play an online game versus grabbing a catnap, which of the two approaches to utilizing your time is more productive?

Undoubtedly, for those that are not getting enough sleep at night, the catnap is the winner.

You’ll be healthier for taking the nap, less irritable, less prone to mistakes and accidents, and otherwise gain significant advantages that playing an online game would be hard-pressed to equal (unless I suppose, you could win a million dollars while playing your favorite online game).

Remember those mobile apps that I mentioned can be downloaded and used to guide your sleep desiring efforts?

Those same kinds of apps will be readily available while you are in a driverless car. Some ridesharing fleets will undoubtedly encourage the act of sleeping, offering free access to such apps. Furthermore, the interior of the car might be specially prepared for sleeping purposes.

The interior of self-driving cars won’t need to use up space for driving controls, those aren’t needed when there isn’t a human driver involved (the AI has driving controls under-the-hood, so to speak).

As such, the inside of driverless cars will aim to allow people to catch some sleep.

Seats will recline into beds. There might be no seats at all and only beds.

The windows of the driverless car will likely be replaced with LED screens to allow you to watch movies and videos. Those window LED screens could just as well be shut off to make the interior dark. Or, the displays might show calm scenes of pleasant Caribbean beaches, allowing you to escape the fact that your driverless car is jammed in traffic on a busy freeway.

Sleep gurus that today coach you via your smartphone, sending you texts or getting connected in a Skype-like manner, they will be able to beam into your driverless car via Internet access and offer you soothing words of advice about how to do a catnap.

The AI that’s driving the car can get into the act of helping you sleep too.

Rather than taking curves and turns in a harsh manner, the AI might employ a human-asleep mode that seeks to drive the car in a smooth and caring manner. No sudden stops. No lurching starts. And, rather than telling you about how the drive is coming along, the AI’s Natural Language Processing (NLP), akin to an Alexa or Siri, might be mum and let you enjoy the peace and quiet inside the self-driving car.

When you need to take longer trips, you can get a full night’s sleep inside the driverless car. During the day, presumably, you’d only get brief snippets of sleep time.

Some believe that we might end-up living in our driverless cars.

You could use your self-driving car to get to work, then after work take you to a bar or restaurant, and then rather than going home, the driverless car would park someplace, and you’d sleep there overnight.

The facility that you used to park the driverless car overnight might have a shower and maybe even a workout room, and once you’ve refreshed yourself, onward you go in your self-driving car to work or whatever is your next destination.

I’m not especially convinced about the notion that we’ll abandon having homes and be using self-driving cars as a replacement or surrogate for our housing, but I bring up the possibility to appease those that think we will ultimately be living full-time in our driverless cars.

Admittedly, some people might do so, of which there are social aspects that will need to be contended with to figure out how that’s going to be feasible and practical. Suppose someone decides to park their driverless car in front of your home in your neighborhood, doing so each night, and they sleep in that self-driving car.

You might be quite displeased with that situation.

Conclusion

Well, it seems like self-driving cars are going to ride to the rescue and finally overcome the sleep deprivation malady.

Not so fast!

We don’t yet know whether people will feel trusting enough to sleep while inside a driverless car. If you are nervous that the driverless car is going to do something amiss, there’s little chance you could allow your mind to sink into a deep sleep.

You would always be keeping one eye open.

Assuming the public believes that driverless cars are safe, and assuming they are indeed safe, the next consideration is whether people can comfortably sleep inside a moving car.

Some people get car sick while trying to sleep in today’s cars (formally known as kinetosis).

The motion of the car seems to turn its stomach. Makers of self-driving cars will likely employ all sorts of trickery to try and help people get to sleep, though we don’t yet know how many people will nonetheless still get car sick and be unable to get shuteye in a self-driving car.

An even more looming barrier to sleeping inside a driverless car is the perceived “lost opportunity” of using the driving journey time for some other purpose.

You could have played another round of your preferred online game and scored ten thousand points.

You could have watched the latest movie that everyone is talking about.

Work will also likely try to intrude upon your driverless car sleeping time.

Your boss might assert that the time during your daily commute ought to be spent catching up on needed paperwork. Or, you are supposed to schedule and undertake work calls and online conference meetings during the time that you are in your driverless car.

Maybe you are sharing the driverless car with others, and there’s little chance to recline your seat into a bed, plus the noise and chatter of the other passengers would be like trying to catch some sleep while on a hectic airplane ride.

Imagine the shame you might endure of showing up at the office and when asked whether you already got your preliminary work done, you instead sheepishly admit that you fell asleep in the driverless car.

Yikes, you lazy bum, you had a high-speed Internet connection and a fully private hour of time, and yet you (expletive) wasted it on sleep!

Shame on you.

Or, should it be shame on the employer for intruding into the only time that you had to make yourself a better worker that’s more alert and ready for a day’s job as a result of getting some sorely needed shuteye?

Only time will tell, and we’ll have to wait and see if self-driving cars can get us to stop thinking about losing sleep, and instead be happy that we are gaining sleep that was otherwise being harmfully shortchanged.

Let’s all sleep on that one.