Blog #15 for HONO1397

The week after spring break we watched a TV series released in 2004 called Shattered. This series was a competitive show where 12 participants were to stay awake for 7 days in order to determine who could stay awake for the longest time possible without naps or shut eye time. The competitors underwent a series of challenges they had to perform and complete to test their alertness, activeness, reaction time, memory, and overall inhibition. As the show progressed, the amount of competitors decreased as well as their alertness. The final episode starred the final three competitors and their final challenge was a rather relaxing one: they were to lay in bed in a dark room for as long as possible, whoever kept awake the longest time was the ultimate winner. Two of the three competitors fell asleep nearly milliseconds apart from each other and the third competitor was the clear winner but wasn’t told that until after two hours had elapsed since the other competitors had fallen asleep. The overall point of the competition was to see how long the human body could remain awake in an environment that was designed to make the body go to sleep. All the competitors in the show were constantly pushing themselves to the limit their bodies could take and acquired an immense amount of sleep debt, all for a shot at a cash prize. The show was designed to deprive the competitors of sleep as much and for as long as possible and it clearly did just that. If you’re interested in watching the entire season of Shattered there is a link for it here: 

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-jWCkuc7TbRd0pdkeIJfvV697E324xX1