The snooze button

A video platform called Napflix wants to put people to sleep with dull content

Tired of Netflix? Now there’s Napflix – a collection of monotonous and repetitive videos designed to put you to sleep. Nicky Loh / Reuters

Technology is not just taking its toll on our family dynamics and relationships, it’s also affecting our sleep. Whether responding to an email or commenting on social media posts, the internet and all of its diversions are keeping us from getting enough rest.

Luckily, there’s an app to fix that. Napflix, a new streaming site, looks and works just like Netflix, but there’s one difference: all the content is intentionally boring. The aim is to lull viewers to sleep through monotony.

This is not the first time technology has acknowledged that you have to sometimes switch it off. Take the Japanese app called Driving Barista, which rewards drivers with free coffee for not using the phone behind the wheel. In the war against online procrastination, we are increasingly turning to apps and software to limit our access to the cyber world.

So it seems our reliance on we technology is complete: we now need it even to disconnect ourselves from other tech.