[tzs]

Based on that comment I was expecting to find an article that was either written by someone from an app company, or that heavily talked about a particular app and its benefits.

Nope. Here's what dingle3 is complaining about. After 8 paragraphs on white noise and its affects on sleep, the last scientist they quotes this in paragraph 8:

> Prof Christian Cajochen, who heads the Centre for Chronobiology at the University of Basel in Switzerland, said: “I think the better [forms of] continuous white noise mask highly intermittent background noise, which is why it is recommended for nightshift workers who often need to sleep during the day in a ‘noisy’ environment. There I can see a benefit, but not when sleeping in a relatively quiet environment. Any acoustic stimulus being continuous or not has the potential to interrupt the sleep process.”

they have one more paragraph, a single sentence long, where that scientist says that he'd rather recommend mindfulness apps that are based on good evidence from research, and names on particular app as an example.

> He added: “I would rather recommend mindfulness apps like Sleepio, since they are based on good evidence coming from research in sleep medicine, particularly cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia.”

That's the entire mention of mindfulness apps in the article.

[dingle3]

the entire things reads like someone trying to push an alternative. there is no evidence in one direction or the other, and nothing is really being said with any conviction.

native advertising is real, and subtlety is key sometimes. if this was not sponsored by the app mentioned in the last paragraph, i'd be very surprised.