Personalization in Circadian Rhythm-Based Event Scheduling

Abstract

The human body follows a natural circadian rhythm, influencing sleep timing, cognitive abilities, and physical energy. Many people live contrary to this biological rhythm, leading to reduced cognitive performance and sleep loss, with college students especially vulnerable to these effects. Currently, there are limited technologies that assist with circadian rhythm alignment, despite the potential for health and productivity benefits. This paper investigates the feasibility of circadian-based activity scheduling for college students. We develop three circadian-based activity schedules that are increasingly personalized: (1) common activity timing according to circadian rhythms research, (2) timing curation according to sociodemographic context, and (3) timing adjustment based on individuals’ specific constraints and context. In a three-week study, we explore users’ responses to each scheduling approach and the potential impact on subjective wellbeing and overall performance. Our results show that participants could follow more activity recommendations as the level of personalization increased. Participants who followed the circadian schedules reported significantly improved well-being than others. However, reported wellbeing was not significantly correlated with increased personalization of timings. These observations provide useful insights into design requirements for circadian-aware recommendation systems.