Le design des dispositifs d’automesure du sommeil

Abstract

This article focuses on a review of U.S. patents dedicated to sleep monitoring and management. It looks specifically at digital inventions that enable the self-monitoring of sleep time and quality through the use of connected devices (quantified sleep). Our aim is to describe the transformations suggested by these inventions when it comes to the individual and collective management of a real public health issue: sleep deprivation. We pay particular attention to the ways quantified-self technologies redistribute individual and collective responsibilities in terms of well-being and health. Are the recommended solutions part of the general movement of “medicalization of daily life”? In what ways? Do they aim to give greater responsibility to individuals, to empower them in relation to their own health? How do they provide for the consultation or not of third parties (medical expertise)? How do these quantified sleep patents take into consideration the various groups that people belong to (family and business in particular)? All these questions are examined through extensive documentary work on 614 patent applications filed before the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Keywords

• quantified self
• internet of things
• health
• responsibilities
• patents