Schumpeter| Sleepless in Silicon Valley

熊彼特|硅谷難眠

Why the techie obsession with sleep technology makes perfect sense

為什么對(duì)睡眠技術(shù)的癡迷是完全有道理的呢

First, close the blackout blinds in your bedroom. Eat dinner at 4pm, and do not eat or drink anything after 6pm. Put on your blue-light blocking glasses at 8pm. Set your bedroom temperature to 67oF (19.4oC) and your electric blanket to 69.8oF (21oC). At 8.45pm, meditate for ?ve to ten minutes. Switch on your deep-wave sound machine. Put on your Oura sleep-tracking ring. You are now, ?nally, ready for slumber. This may all sound a bit over the top. But this is the “sleep hygiene” routine described in a recent blog post by Bryan Johnson, who sold his previous company to eBay for $800m and is now chief executive of Kernel, a startup developing braincomputer interfaces. He admits that his sleep routine has “decimated my social life”, and that his partner sleeps in a di?erent room, but says all this trouble is worth it, because it has boosted his level of “deep sleep” by as much as 157%. He has bought Oura rings for all his employees.

首先，關(guān)上臥室里的遮光窗簾。下午4點(diǎn)吃晚飯，6點(diǎn)以后不要吃或喝任何東西。晚上8點(diǎn)戴上你的藍(lán)光遮光眼鏡。把臥室溫度調(diào)到67度(19.4攝氏度)，把電熱毯調(diào)到69.8度(21攝氏度)。晚上8點(diǎn)45分，冥想5到10分鐘。打開(kāi)你的深波錄音機(jī)。戴上你的Oura睡眠追蹤戒指。你終于可以睡覺(jué)了。這聽(tīng)起來(lái)可能有點(diǎn)夸張。但這是布賴恩?約翰遜(Bryan Johnson)最近在一篇博客文章中描述的“睡眠衛(wèi)生”例行程序。約翰遜曾以8億美元的價(jià)格將自己的前一家公司出售給eBay，目前是開(kāi)發(fā)人腦計(jì)算機(jī)界面的初創(chuàng)企業(yè)Kernel的首席執(zhí)行官。他承認(rèn)他的睡眠習(xí)慣“毀掉了我的社交生活”，他的伴侶睡在另一個(gè)房間，但他說(shuō)所有這些麻煩都是值得的，因?yàn)檫@讓他的“深度睡眠”水平提高了157%。他給所有的員工都買了Oura戒指。

詞匯

Blackout/燈火管制；燈火熄滅；

Slumber/睡眠；麻木狀態(tài)；靜止?fàn)顟B(tài)

Decimate/大大削弱，使……嚴(yán)重失效；

Mr Johnson does not expect other people to copy his routine, but made it public to encourage the sharing of sleep habits and tips. Like many other techies, he regards sleep hygiene as an e?ective way to maintain mental health, boost cognition and enhance productivity. In its most recent funding round, backers of Oura, the Finnish maker of the high-tech ring, included the co-founders of YouTube and Twitch, along with alumni of Facebook, Skype and Box.com. The ring’s most famous user is Jack Dorsey, the boss of Twitter, whose unusual wellness regime—which also incorporates near-infrared saunas, radiation-blocking Faraday tents, fasting and cryotherapy—prompted the New York Times this month to dub him “Gwyneth Paltrow for Silicon Valley”. For tech tycoons, it seems, sleep is the new ?tness.

約翰遜并不指望其他人會(huì)效仿他的作息習(xí)慣，但他將其公之于眾是為了鼓勵(lì)大家分享睡眠習(xí)慣和小貼士。和許多其他技術(shù)人員一樣，他認(rèn)為睡眠衛(wèi)生是保持心理健康、提高認(rèn)知能力和提高工作效率的有效方法。在最近一輪融資中，高科技戒指的芬蘭制造商Oura的支持者包括YouTube和Twitch的聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人，以及Facebook、Skype和Box.com的校友。這款戒指最著名的用戶是推特的老板杰克·多爾西，他的不尋常的健康制度——包括近紅外桑拿、輻射屏蔽法拉第帳篷、禁食和冷凍療法——促使《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》本月將他稱為“硅谷的格溫妮絲·帕特洛”。對(duì)于科技巨頭來(lái)說(shuō)，睡眠似乎是一種新的健身方式。

詞匯

Alumni/校友，畢業(yè)生

Tycoon/?企業(yè)界大亨，巨頭；巨富

Those who want to monitor and improve their sleep have no shortage of gadgets to choose from. As well as electric blankets and mattress-chillers, sound machines and smart rings, there are also smart pillows, sleep-tracking watches and bracelets, intelligent sleep masks, brain-stimulating headbands, bedside sleep sensors and countless sleep-monitoring apps. The market for sleep technology was worth $58bn in 2014 and is expected to grow to $81bn by 2020, according to Persistence, a market-research ?rm. Big companies in the ?eld include household names such as Apple, Bose, Nokia and Philips. After Mr Dorsey’s enthusiastic endorsement, the Oura rings are back-ordered by four to six weeks.

那些想要監(jiān)測(cè)和改善睡眠的人有很多選擇。除了電熱毯和床墊——冰箱、音響設(shè)備和智能戒指，還有智能枕頭、睡眠追蹤手表和手鐲、智能睡眠面罩、刺激大腦的發(fā)帶、床邊睡眠傳感器和無(wú)數(shù)的睡眠監(jiān)測(cè)應(yīng)用程序。市場(chǎng)研究公司Persistence表示，2014年睡眠技術(shù)市場(chǎng)價(jià)值580億美元，預(yù)計(jì)到2020年將增長(zhǎng)至810億美元。該領(lǐng)域的大公司包括蘋果(Apple)、博斯(Bose)、諾基亞(Nokia)和飛利浦(Philips)等家喻戶曉的公司。在多爾西的熱情支持下，Oura戒指的訂單將在4至6周后延遲交付。

詞匯

Gadget/小玩意；小器具；小配件；

Bracelet/手鐲

Endorsement/認(rèn)可，支持；

back-ordered/延遲交付

The mania for sleep technology makes perfect sense for the tech industry, combining as it does several existing trends. For a start, it ?ts with the industry’s metrics-driven worldview. Techies obsess about okrs (objectives and key results), kpis (key performance indicators) and digital-analytics dashboards showing the performance of speci?c products and features. Applying similar techniques to sleep and other aspects of their personal lives—an approach known as the “quanti?ed self”—seems a logical step. As those in the startup world like to say, channelling Peter Drucker, a management guru, “what’s measured improves.”

對(duì)睡眠科技的狂熱對(duì)科技行業(yè)來(lái)說(shuō)意義重大，因?yàn)樗Y(jié)合了幾個(gè)現(xiàn)有的趨勢(shì)。首先，它符合行業(yè)標(biāo)準(zhǔn)驅(qū)動(dòng)的世界觀。技術(shù)人員癡迷于okrs(目標(biāo)和關(guān)鍵結(jié)果)、kpi(關(guān)鍵績(jī)效指標(biāo))和數(shù)字分析儀表板(顯示特定產(chǎn)品和功能的性能)。將類似的技術(shù)應(yīng)用于睡眠和個(gè)人生活的其他方面——一種被稱為“量化自我”的方法——似乎是一個(gè)合乎邏輯的步驟。正如創(chuàng)業(yè)界的人喜歡說(shuō)的，借用管理學(xué)大師彼得?德魯克(Peter Drucker)的話說(shuō)，“經(jīng)過(guò)衡量的事物會(huì)有所改善?！?/p>

詞匯

Metrics/度量

Sleep-tracking also aligns neatly with Silicon Valley’s cult of productivity, and the constant search for “l(fā)ife hacks” that will make entrepreneurs more e?ective, e?cient and successful. This ranges from wearing the same clothes every day, Steve Jobs-style (thus avoiding wasting time deciding what to put on), to fastidious ?tness routines and complicated diets. Elaborate sleep regimes slot right in, because they promise clarity of thought and improved cognitive performance. They also let people extend their quanti?ed-self and life-hacking e?orts into the one part of the day that was previously untouched: shut-eye. Relentlessly pursuing productivity only while you are awake is for wimps. Sleep-tracking means you can do it round the clock. Oura describes its sensorpacked ring as a “secret weapon for personal improvement”—another way to get ahead.

睡眠追蹤也與硅谷對(duì)生產(chǎn)力的推崇以及對(duì)“生活小竅門”的不斷探索保持著一致，這些小竅門會(huì)讓創(chuàng)業(yè)者更有效率、更高效、更成功。從每天穿同樣的衣服，史蒂夫·喬布斯式的(從而避免浪費(fèi)時(shí)間決定穿什么)，到挑剔的健身計(jì)劃和復(fù)雜的飲食。精心設(shè)計(jì)的睡眠機(jī)制正好發(fā)揮了作用，因?yàn)樗鼈兂兄Z思維清晰，提高認(rèn)知能力。他們還讓人們把他們量化的自我和生活竅門的努力延伸到一天中以前沒(méi)有接觸過(guò)的那一部分:睡覺(jué)。只有在你醒著的時(shí)候，才會(huì)孜孜不倦地追求效率。睡眠跟蹤意味著你可以24小時(shí)不間斷地跟蹤。Oura將其傳感器戒指描述為“提高個(gè)人能力的秘密武器”——另一種獲得成功的方式。

詞匯

Align/排列；排成一行

Cult/狂熱；異教團(tuán)體；宗教信仰

Fastidious/ ?挑剔的；苛求的，難取悅的；

Elaborate/精心制作的；詳盡的；煞費(fèi)苦心的

Wimp/懦弱的人，無(wú)能的人；瘦弱的男人

Never mind that a study published in 2015, by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, found that sleep-tracking devices could not accurately measure sleep, and that claims made about them were long on hype and short on solid evidence. Ignore the fact that another study, published in 2017 by researchers at two medical schools in Chicago, warned of the dangers of “orthosomnia”, de?ned as a “perfectionistic quest for the ideal sleep in order to optimise daytime function”, as obsessive users of sleep-tech devices self-diagnose sleep disturbances based on dodgy data, or stay awake all night worrying that they are falling behind by not sleeping as e?ciently as rivals.

盡管麻省總醫(yī)院(Massachusetts General Hospital)和哈佛醫(yī)學(xué)院(Harvard Medical School)的研究人員在2015年發(fā)表的一項(xiàng)研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，睡眠追蹤設(shè)備無(wú)法準(zhǔn)確測(cè)量睡眠，有關(guān)它們的說(shuō)法也只是夸大其詞，缺乏確鑿證據(jù)。忽視了一個(gè)事實(shí),另一項(xiàng)研究中,兩個(gè)醫(yī)學(xué)院的研究人員在2017年出版在芝加哥,警告的危險(xiǎn)“orthosomnia”,定義為“為了優(yōu)化白晝工作效率而追求完美且理想主義的睡眠”,這就尤指那些執(zhí)迷于依靠睡眠監(jiān)測(cè)設(shè)備的用戶，因?yàn)檫@些不可靠的睡眠反映數(shù)據(jù)而睡眠受擾，或者說(shuō)，由于發(fā)自內(nèi)心的焦慮，擔(dān)心由于自身睡眠質(zhì)量比不上其他競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手而導(dǎo)致自己徹夜難眠。

詞匯

Disturbance/干擾；騷亂；憂慮

Dodgy/狡猾的，逃避的；善于騙人的；躲閃的

It is hardly surprising that techies are not getting enough sleep, given the industry’s culture of long hours, and the widespread notion that for a true entrepreneur, everything else in life is secondary to succeeding at work. The enthusiasm for sleep-tech also ?ts a larger pattern of using technology to ?x problems that the industry itself has created. Is your smartphone too addictive? Here’s an app to help you monitor and track your usage. Are the streets of your city clogged with Ubers? Try an electric scooter instead. Seen this way, the embrace of sleep-tracking is an indictment of the whole culture: it tackles the symptoms of sleep deprivation, but not the disease.

考慮工業(yè)環(huán)境下長(zhǎng)時(shí)間工作的大背景，以及人們普遍共識(shí)——對(duì)于一個(gè)真正的企業(yè)家來(lái)說(shuō)，生活中的其他一切都是工作成功的次要因素，技術(shù)人員睡眠不足不足為奇。對(duì)睡眠科技的熱情也符合一個(gè)更大的模式，即利用科技來(lái)解決行業(yè)自身造成的問(wèn)題。你對(duì)智能手機(jī)上癮了嗎?這里有一個(gè)應(yīng)用程序可以幫助你監(jiān)控和跟蹤你的使用情況。你所在城市的街道都被優(yōu)步車弄得寸步難行嗎?試試電動(dòng)滑板車吧。從這個(gè)角度看，對(duì)睡眠追蹤（來(lái)改善睡眠）的接受是對(duì)整個(gè)工業(yè)文化的控訴:它解決的是睡眠不足的癥狀，而不是疾病。

詞匯

Clog/阻塞；妨礙

indictment/起訴書；控告

deprivation/?剝奪；損失；匱乏；貧困

Sleepwalking into the future

夢(mèng)游未來(lái)

But resist the temptation to dismiss all this as batty. Sleep-tracking is at exactly the stage that ?tness-tracking technology was at a decade ago. Now ?tness trackers (including the Apple Watch) are mainstream and nobody bats an eyelid when people share details of their morning runs on Facebook. The same could easily happen with sleep-tech. A series of previous examples—including the use of email, the embrace of online shopping, hailing a car with an app, or renting a room in an unfamiliar city from a complete stranger—are a reminder that the seemingly crazy things that Silicon Valley types do today, everyone else may end up doing in a decade’s time. In this case, in their sleep.

但要抵制住把這一切都斥為瘋狂的誘惑（或許很難）。睡眠跟蹤技術(shù)正處于十年前健康跟蹤技術(shù)所處的階段。如今，健身追蹤器(包括Apple Watch)已成為主流，當(dāng)人們?cè)贔acebook上分享晨跑細(xì)節(jié)時(shí)，沒(méi)有人會(huì)對(duì)此大驚小怪。同樣的情況也很容易發(fā)生在睡眠科技上。之前一系列的例子包括使用電子郵件,對(duì)網(wǎng)上購(gòu)物的接受,讓汽車與應(yīng)用程序相結(jié)合,或者在一所陌生的城市里向一名完全的陌生人手中租房——這一些列事件（的普遍化）都提醒了人們這些如今在硅谷類似的看起來(lái)瘋狂的事情，在未來(lái)的十年內(nèi)可能慢慢變成所有人都接受的普通事件。就這樣，在一次次睡眠中逐漸普及，為人所接受。

詞匯

batty/古怪的；瘋狂的

bats an eyelid/眨一下眼（表示驚訝）