6 ms·

Wouldn't this have something to do with people opening HN items up in tabs and reading + commenting before moving on to the next one?

NathanKP 16y ago
Many Reddit readers use the same reading technique and their time per page was still low.
- levesque 16y ago
  That's because they can't read... out of 20 submissions on front page there are always at least 10 posts of pictures without text.
- araneae 16y ago
  I recently deleted my reddit account due to an addiction problem, but while I was on I would open lots of tabs to come back to later, and I don't do that on HN. I'm not sure how similar my experience is.
goodside 16y ago
Yes, it would. "Time on Site" measurements do nothing to detect whether the site has been opened in the background, or whether visitors are actively engaged. General practice seems to be to measure the extent of this bias by comparing the duration of the first pageview to the duration of subsequent pageviews during multi-page visits.
- est 16y ago
  Shouldn't "time on site" implement a pause timer function if blur() ?
  - chime 16y ago
    I'm not sure that blur is fired if you switch tabs.
    - jiaaro 16y ago
      it is
      - chime 16y ago
        It is indeed. I tested it out by opening this in multiple tabs and switching back and forth: <html> <head> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.min.js"></script> </head> <body> <textarea id="sd1"></textarea><br /> <textarea id="sd2" rows="20"></textarea> <script> $("#sd1").focus(); $(function() { $("#sd1").blur(function() { $("#sd2").val($("#sd2").val() + "\nblur!"); }); $("#sd1").focus(function() { $("#sd2").val($("#sd2").val() + "\nfocus!"); }); }); </script> </body></html>
  - goodside 16y ago
    It should. I was referring to Google Analytics in particular, which was the source of this data, and GA's calculation doesn't use blur tracking as far as I can tell.
noodle 16y ago
this isn't behavior restricted to HN, though

NathanKP 16y ago

Many Reddit readers use the same reading technique and their time per page was still low.

levesque 16y ago
That's because they can't read... out of 20 submissions on front page there are always at least 10 posts of pictures without text.
araneae 16y ago
I recently deleted my reddit account due to an addiction problem, but while I was on I would open lots of tabs to come back to later, and I don't do that on HN. I'm not sure how similar my experience is.

goodside 16y ago

Yes, it would. "Time on Site" measurements do nothing to detect whether the site has been opened in the background, or whether visitors are actively engaged. General practice seems to be to measure the extent of this bias by comparing the duration of the first pageview to the duration of subsequent pageviews during multi-page visits.

est 16y ago
Shouldn't "time on site" implement a pause timer function if blur() ?
- chime 16y ago
  I'm not sure that blur is fired if you switch tabs.
  - jiaaro 16y ago
    it is
    - chime 16y ago
      It is indeed. I tested it out by opening this in multiple tabs and switching back and forth: <html> <head> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.min.js"></script> </head> <body> <textarea id="sd1"></textarea><br /> <textarea id="sd2" rows="20"></textarea> <script> $("#sd1").focus(); $(function() { $("#sd1").blur(function() { $("#sd2").val($("#sd2").val() + "\nblur!"); }); $("#sd1").focus(function() { $("#sd2").val($("#sd2").val() + "\nfocus!"); }); }); </script> </body></html>
- goodside 16y ago
  It should. I was referring to Google Analytics in particular, which was the source of this data, and GA's calculation doesn't use blur tracking as far as I can tell.

noodle 16y ago

this isn't behavior restricted to HN, though