Alarm clocks: Humanity's disruptive wake-up call

Alarm clocks, once decried as a "ghastly innovation," are the subject of a new cultural history that questions our willingness to be enslaved by the wake-up call. German cultural scientist Christoph Ribbat's book, "In den Tag" (Into the Day), delves into humanity's complex relationship with waking up, tracing the evolution of alarm clocks and the societal pressures surrounding early rising.

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The alarm clock is the devil. A ghastly innovation, undignified and alienating.

Ribbat begins by recounting the backlash against early electric alarm clocks after World War I, noting that many of these disruptive devices, despite being perceived as American, were actually manufactured in Germany by Junghans. The company offered models with increasingly jarring names like "Radau" (Racket), "Krawall" (Brawl), and "Terror," alongside the "Repetierwecker Störenfried" (Repeater Alarm Nuisance) for persistent sleepers.

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Racket

The book adopts a light, subtly ironic tone, reminiscent of early columns by Harald Martenstein. It presents a series of episodes and aperçus, loosely chronological, all revolving around the alarm clock and the age-old debate: Does the early bird catch the worm, or do the world belong to the late sleepers? Experts may dismiss this with talk of "chronotypes" and recommended sleep durations, but the issue remains relevant.

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Brawl

Modern pressures, from short summer nights to social media influencers showcasing their pre-dawn routines of yoga, healthy breakfasts, and lucrative stock trades, reinforce the idea that those who sleep too much are losers. This notion that sleep is worthless is deeply ingrained, with historical precedents like medieval monks rising for prayer at 3 or 5 a.m., and Thomas Edison's suggestion that Americans sleep one hour less per night to boost productivity.

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Terror