So Much Filler

With so much time dedicated to news, the media faces the choice of either saying the same thing over and over until people get sick of hearing it and it loses its edge, or trying to come up with enough extra items to fill the time available. The trend has been to accuse “cable news” of this use of filler (and other things, like using unverified sources), but it's found on the networks as well.

The practice of using filler goes beyond the cute animal pictures from the Internet and the feel-good, human-interest stories at the end of evening newscasts. This explains why every time I hear a newscaster start with the words, “A new study shows,” I tend to roll my eyes and tune it out. It is there to fill airtime and is either incomplete, inconclusive or both, featuring words like linked to and may cause and leads to or simply a rehash of common knowledge – often both.

A prime example turned up last week. It appeared not only on network news, but on CNN and Time.com. Napping is good for you.

 “In a new paper published in the journal Heart, researchers found that Swiss adults who took one or two daytime naps per week had a lower risk of heart problems, including heart disease and strokes, than non-nappers.” They followed about 3500 people between the ages of 35 and 75 for eight years, dividing them into four groups based on self-reporting: no naps, 1-2 times per week, 3-5 naps per week and about daily. 

They drew the conclusion by sorting that data by the 155 people in the study who developed heart problems. (Except their conclusion did not apply to people over 65.) Time also reports: “The study was limited by its observational design—which allows researchers to find only patterns, not cause and effect.” There, late in the article come the disclaimers. 

CNN's piece was a little more forthright at the beginning with the headline: "Daytime naps once or twice a week may be linked to a healthy heart.” Their expert doesn’t think changing habits to conform to the study findings will improve heart health. It may be more about overall choices behind those sleep habits. It is “far better to aim for regular good night's sleep and to follow usual lifestyle advice of good diets and decent activity levels.”

The whole story is very heavy on may be linked and no definite cause and effect, concluding with common advice on healthy lifestyles.

One wonders why it even considered newsworthy when the study itself gives the same vague information: “Nap frequency may help explain the discrepant findings [in other studies] regarding the association between napping and [cardiovascular disease] events." [Emphasis added.]

The researchers acknowledged limitations: reliance on self-reporting, the small number of subjects with CVD events (155) – especially in the 1-2 naps per week group, the possibility of underestimating morning napping due to the questionnaire’s wording and the possibility of residual confounding, which means that other factors not included in the study could have affected the results. Therefore, “these results should be interpreted with caution,” and generalizing conclusions beyond the Swiss population “is not guaranteed.” 

Looking into the details confirmed my suspicions. This study may have been of interest to other research groups working on napping-related questions, but it was very limited and of no value at all to the American public. Why then did 76 news outlets pick up the story with some providing more thorough and accurate information than others? – Filler!

Getting Enough Sleep

The original story was in the New York Times Magazine but many other outlets picked it up and commented as well.  Sleep is the new status symbol.  If you get 7 or more hours of sleep per night you are the envy of the neighborhood (or the office).

There was a time, not too long ago, when bragging rights went to those with more endurance, the marathon runners of staying awake.  If someone needed only 4 or 5 hours (or less) a night, we were sure to hear about it.  It put him or her in a league with many people famous, in part, for their admirable work ethic.  The list includes Thomas Edison, Nicola Tesla, Buckminster Fuller and Leonardo Da Vinci. If someone achieves stardom but needs a normal amount of sleep, we never hear about it.  The rich and famous who got by on much less had it listed with other credentials of superiority.

Now driven by promotion of a supposedly new, cool image, we are being sold a wide variety of sleep solutions that are expected to fly off the shelves.  The researchers are investigating a broad spectrum of ideas and devices including: a machine for bedroom air quality measurement, recordings of Icelandic fairy tales, specialty hammocks, weighted blankets, lavender oil and a headband that uses sound waves to induce sleep.  Another inventor came up with “a gadget you wear on your finger that uses sound to startle you awake every three minutes for an hour.”  The theory is that it gets all disruptions out of the way allowing you to fall asleep.   He also markets “a pair of goggles fitted with tiny green-blue lights that shine back into your eyes, [which] aims to reset your body’s clock.”  This is becoming big business.  “Sleep entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley and beyond have poured into the sleep space, as branders like to say -- a $32 billion market in 2012 -- formerly inhabited by old-style mattress and pharmaceutical companies.”  (I guess if they can sell us water that falls from the sky, they can sell us sleep, too.)

While the purpose of sleep may not be totally clear, the benefits of getting enough sleep and the dangers of getting too little are well known and broadly publicized.  The website health.com lists many benefits.  Getting enough sleep is among the big, common sense lifestyle recommendations on such websites as Mayo Clinic, WebMD and many others – along with healthy eating, not smoking, not drinking to excess and exercise.  In his book about addiction Irresistible, Adam Alter lists the following as symptoms of sleep deprivation:  heart disease, lung disease, kidney disease, appetite suppression, poor weight control, weakened immune functioning, lower resistance to disease, higher pain sensitivity, slow reaction times, mood fluctuation, depressed brain functioning, depression, obesity, diabetes and certain forms of cancer. (p. 68).  The annual loss to businesses in the US attributed to sleep-deprived employees is estimated at $411 billion.

We know all the truth of this and usually feel it the next day but pay no attention to the advice.  One source estimates the problem at thirty percent of the population.  In 2017 does it take hype, gadgets and gimmicks to get Americans doing what they have known all along they really should be doing?  That doesn’t paint a very encouraging picture of our society and its future.  It used to be simple.  Our cave-dwelling ancestors could fall asleep without an app or a sleep coach even as they faced more threatening daily perils; why can’t we?

Feeling Sleepy?

Most areas of discipline become a conflict between simple and easy.  To lose weight is simple – eat less and exercise more.  Is it easy? – Certainly not.  To avoid being ambushed by unexpected bills and to ultimately retire comfortably and securely is simple – don’t spend more than you earn.  That too is not easy for most people.  That’s why the initial challenge of discipline is so often compounded by those smooth sales pitches about some magic formula, pill or secret the banks, credit card companies or Wall Street don’t want you to know.  These scams prey on people who understand the simple answer but decide it’s too difficult to carry out.

The dimension of discipline is often associated with diet, finances, smoking, drinking and gambling.  But there are so many other simple things that we find excuses for or just skip rather than just doing:  applying sunscreen, buckling seatbelts, flossing, etc.  Another often-overlooked area is getting enough sleep.  Here again the answer is simple for both adults and children – have a regular bedtime and stick to it.

The news media reminds us that once again Americans struggle.  This NBC story (among others) reports:  “More than a third of Americans say they're not getting enough sleep, putting themselves at risk of obesity, heart disease and other issues.”  This particular warning comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  “CDC experts looked at health surveys covering more than 400,000 Americans.”  That is a very large sample size, which is good; but the data comes from self-reporting, which is not as reliable as observation, and it may be exaggerated in either direction. 

Nonetheless, here is another problem area related to discipline.  The researchers give the answer:  “Lifestyle changes such as going to bed at the same time each night; rising at the same time each morning; and turning off or removing televisions, computers, mobile devices from the bedroom, can help people get the healthy sleep they need."  And how many other proposed solutions to health problems begin with the words “lifestyle changes”?  This is the discipline link.

A separate study from the University of California at Irvine just a day or two earlier linked lack of sleep with the use of social media.  The sample was much smaller and limited (76 students), and they were not trying to blame Facebook for the problem.  They just point out how easy it can be, when someone is very tired, to find refuge in such an undemanding, lightweight distraction.  Furthermore, the light shining in your eyes is more stimulating than relaxing.

But the CDC's main concern is about the big-picture problems.  “Sleep deprivation has ripple effects through an economy, leading to greater incidence of workplace accidents and car crashes. If experts…can better understand how sleep deprivation affects people, better products and better technology can be utilized to alleviate it.” 

Yes, there are those societal consequences, plus lower productivity.  Yet here again we have experts turning to technology to fix a problem that is simple (but not easy) for us to solve ourselves.  The magic technology will take care of it and we don’t have to do the hard work.  Is going to bed at the same time each night; rising at the same time each morning; removing the electronics from the bedroom really hard work?