Adequate sleep is essential for overall health and well-being. Despite advances in understanding sleep and the development of sleep-tracking technologies, insufficient and poor-quality sleep remain widespread issues worldwide. This situation raises questions about whether these advancements have contributed to improved sleep. Owing to the growing awareness of sleep health, sleep tracking has attracted increasing interest from both society and the scholarly community.

Sleep tracking, a form of self-tracking, refers to the practice of using technological tools to monitor, record, and measure an individual’s sleep. Compared to self-tracking, research on sleep tracking has received relatively limited attention and has undergone less rigorous empirical investigation. Nevertheless, prior research has suggested that sleep-tracking technology can increase users’ awareness of their sleep, support behavioral changes, and promote overall health and well-being. Despite these benefits, users still face challenges when using sleep-tracking technologies. Therefore, a more granular analysis is needed to uncover the underlying reasons for users’ behavior in the context of sleep tracking. In addition, the effectiveness of sleep-tracking technology in improving sleep often falls short of users’ expectations, further highlighting the need to explore how individuals respond to these technologies. Although prior studies have examined the challenges and barriers associated with sleep tracking, the potential stressors and their adverse effects warrant further investigation.

Against this backdrop, this dissertation seeks to understand how users interact with both sleep-tracking technologies and the data they generate, addressing the main research question (RQ): How do people engage with sleep-tracking technology? To answer this question, this dissertation is guided by three sub-RQs: (1) Why and how do people use sleep-tracking technology? (2) How do configurations of technology affordances and psychological outcomes influence advice-compliance behavior in sleep tracking? and (3) What are the potential stressors associated with sleep tracking, and how do they impact health anxiety?

This dissertation comprises six articles: two literature reviews (Articles I and VI) and four empirical studies (Articles II–V). The first systematic literature review (Article I) inspires this dissertation and generates its sub-RQs. The empirical research (Articles II–V) adopts a mixed-methods approach, combining 38 semi-structured interviews with Oura smart ring users and 324 survey responses from general sleep-tracking users. The data were examined using thematic analysis, structural equation modeling, and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. A Q-sorting test was employed to develop and validate the measurement items for the new constructs that were included in the survey. The final integrative literature review (Article VI) synthesizes current research on sleep tracking and proposes future research agendas in this field.

The key findings of this dissertation shed light on how people engage with sleep tracking technology. Overall, the findings across six articles reveal that sleep tracking can be understood from a sociotechnical perspective, embodies a duality as both advisor and stressor, and involves complex and asymmetric relationships between its antecedents and outcomes. Specifically, Article II demonstrates that feature-enabled technology affordances can both satisfy and frustrate users’ basic psychological needs in the context of sleep tracking. Moreover, the satisfaction of autonomy and competence needs plays an important role in sleep tracking, whereas relatedness needs are less central. In addition, Article III identifies several configurations of technology affordances and psychological outcomes that contribute to high and low levels of advice-compliance behavior. The findings highlight that obtaining sleep-related guidance and triggering behavioral changes are an important pair of affordances associated with advice-compliance behavior. Finally, Articles IV and V identify, develop, and validate the measurement items for eight potential stressors associated with sleep tracking. The results indicate that invasion, unreliability, pursuit of perfect data, and vague guidance have direct and positive effects on health anxiety, while complexity, inaccuracy, and data– perception discrepancy have indirect effects on health anxiety.

Accordingly, this dissertation contributes to both theoretical understanding and practical applications. Theoretically, it advances sleep-tracking knowledge by conceptualizing sleep tracking as a sociotechnical practice and clarifying the pathways that influence sleep-tracking outcomes from the information systems perspective. This dissertation also enriches and expands the sociotechnical perspective and existing theories to better fit the sleep-tracking context. Practically, the findings offer insights for designing a user-centered sleep-tracking technology by enhancing detection accuracy, implementing transparency mechanisms, providing personalized feedback, offering nonintrusive notifications, and rethinking social features and comparative metrics. This dissertation also guides users to engage more proactively, remain attentive to their own feelings and perceptions, and avoid overreliance on technology.

Finally, this dissertation acknowledges several limitations and proposes agendas for future research on sleep tracking. Researchers should strive for a balance between qualitative and quantitative approaches, strengthen theoretical foundations, and promote interdisciplinary collaboration. Moreover, researchers are encouraged to explore individual differences, the evolution of technology, user-centered design, stakeholder roles, and the broader impacts of sleep tracking, including behavioral changes and potential adverse effects.