Romel Keith Agtang

Netsomnia: Book of Revelations

Do we now prioritize screentime over sleep time? – “Netsomnia” is a coined term describing our resonating behavior of nighttime phoneuse in our bedrooms. Essentially, this project looks at today’s excessive reliance on smartphone-based activities and its association to lack of sleep. Our extended engagement with our devices has been linked to sleep deprivation and with the use of statistical data; this project investigates trends relating to bedtime digital consumptions, declining sleep durations and the implications of screentime in the quality of our overall sleep and health. Explored and represented together using data visualizations and illustrations, my thesis takes you to a bedtime story of revelations. This virtual book (originally exploring a blend of augmented-reality and the printed media) is meant to mimic our behaviour towards our phone. The book of revelation is as straightforward as is. Revealing the truth about our addicting 'phone-somniac' behaviours,. Within my project, the book represents a smartphone, equipped with countless informations here and there like browsing the internet, informations after informations, data after data, in which could keep us hooked.

“A Wake Up Call to Sleep.In the dynamic world of embraced digital media consumption and media diet, we have found ourselves in total reliance with our smartphones. As a portal to the internet world, we have been given the power of accessibility of unlimited information which have greatly shifted our culture and the way we live each day. A main source of interaction in almost every facet that applies to every single one of us. From our simple desires of entertainment and quality time, to our newly found reality of digital social media lives. Like a pair of clothing, our smartphone has become part of us. To spend hours with it is both a necessity and a choice quickly laid down upon us to keep up with the new world. The norm is to spend hours browsing the internet, shopping, reading anything from our social media feeds, while simultaneously switching from apps to apps checking our notifications and feeds, send and exchange messages, stream videos at the other app. All happens within a single phone use and repeated at a looping fashion, for hours and hours because it feels great to not miss out on something?​To evaluate this behaviour is not the norm, even to question the appearance of crowds, for an instance, staring down individually at their screens is an invisible observation. As we head into these culturally tolerated behaviours, one question will arise, of all the countless hours we spend digitally consuming, do we still have time left for our sleep? ​At this rapidly shifting generation, we are as well rapidly switching to a sleepless society or the fact that sleep isn’t valued that much anymore. A tolerance in sleeping less in-exchange of our digital media consumptions. A digitally addicted, poor sleep hygiene society. ​This tolerance is what “Netsomnia” stands for. A hidden behaviour we all, at some point, have manifested in our bedrooms as we live in the prevalence of unmanaged and unmoderated smartphone use. It Is the entity that we normally don’t see or ignore during our nighttime sessions. It is the behaviour we have when we continue to scroll on our phones during a scheduled bedtime. It is how we let our eyes engage to the allure of the glowing screen at night. It is an investigation to the behaviour and action we fail to notice or continue to tolerate. As it aims to decipher this, Netsomnia is also about looking for the answers while also providing information in hopes of a better way of understanding this behavious and to promote the importance of digital detox.​This project has only one major goal, and that is to allow you to self-evaluate yourself of what’s to prioritize. To try to steal sleep later and browse as much as you can or simply sleep?”