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Survey: 1 In 4 Adults Checks Phone Less Than A Minute After Waking Up
- pelagic_sky 8y agoMy phone is my alarm. But it’s also clear across the room. I also do not autofetch email so when I turn off the alarm I swipe to check for email as I get dressed. I’m always excited to see if I got some interesting email that will take me away from this routine. I should also note I easily spend 5 days in the wilderness with no phone connection at all.
- NullPrefix 8y agoYou know that you can preload memes on your phone for offline usage, right?
- pelagic_sky 8y agoFinally! Life has meaning again! :)
- mikejulietbravo 8y agoDoes this mean that 3/4 adults use something other than their cell phone as an alarm clock? That’s way more crazy to me than the initial stat.
- wenc 8y agoYeah, I had a manual alarm clock for years, and recently discovered that my phone is actually the ideal alarm clock. I travel a lot, often to different time zones, and instead of having muck around with hotel alarm clocks, my phone alarm always goes off at the same time every morning relative to the local time. And there's no alarm clock at home that buzzes in the morning and annoys the heck out of my neighbors before shutting itself off after 30 mins. A phone also doesn't blink 00:00 when the power goes out.
- ocdtrekkie 8y agoI've rarely had a phone successful in waking me up. I've had reasonably good luck with a Motorola Xoom tablet I still have that still works for this purpose. (The Xoom is a nice thick device that didn't slouch on component size, and can put out legit audio.) But the most effective alarm clock I own is a good old-fashion quartz clock AM/FM radio. It's WAY louder than any phone or tablet can offer up, and having it is often more reliable as well, given that my phone sometimes needs a hard reboot after installing a security update and hence isn't booted when I wake up, or didn't align for charging correctly and ran out of battery while sitting on the charging pad. On the other hand, the battery in the Xoom mitigates the risk of my alarm not going off due to a power outage, and it being smart mitigates the risk of being late due to a time change.
- theandrewbailey 8y ago> But the most effective alarm clock I own is a good old-fashion quartz clock AM/FM radio. Mine predates the recession, and I still rely on it. I have it on my dresser, such that I need to stand up and get out of bed to turn it off. Hey, while I'm up, let's start the day.
- jstanley 8y agoI doubt 4/4 adults use an alarm clock at all.
- pranalli 8y agoNobody uses an alarm clock after having kids.
- chooseaname 8y agoNope. But I still grab my phone and look sadly at the time.
- dbcurtis 8y agoWait till they hit college. then you become the alarm clock. (Today, got up at 0500 Pacific to provide back-up alarm for kid on east coast with final).
- lordCarbonFiber 8y agolol wut. In what world does your adult offspring need a call from home to show up for an obligation? Do you plan on early morning wake up calls every day of their career as well (because you should probably automate that).
- ntumlin 8y agoThis is common, or at least, I've definitely had my parents do this for me, and I know my friends have too. The logic is as follows: I need to be up early, my parents always get up early, and my alarm almost always works. If I have both to wake me up, there's a good chance I won't accidentally sleep in.
- sys_64738 8y agoThis is rewarding bad behavior. The offspring should be conditioned to awaken themselves by having an unpleasant experience occur when they don't awaken when expected. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_conditioning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_conditioning
- wgerard 8y ago
- tlrobinson 8y agoBelieve it or not, it's possible to turn off the alarm without checking your phone.
- giancarlostoro 8y agoNot the 2nd alarm?
- usrusr 8y agoIt's also possible to turn off the alarm without waking up. Now eagerly awaiting the follow-up study: have we developed the ability to check the phone without waking up yet?
- njarboe 8y agoOr swiping the alarm off instead of the snooze. Physical alarm clocks have different motions. Push big button, snooze. Click little switch, turn off alarm. Much better. Though, like everything these days, I heard there is an app for that. Swipe to snooze. Calculate some math problem and enter the answer for alarm off. Haven't bought the app myself yet.
- beatgammit 8y agoI put my phone across the room so I have to get out of bed to turn off my alarm. It works really well and I now have to consciously decide to go back to bed. I set two alarms: 5 and 6. If I make my first alarm, I get an hour to myself. If I don't, I scramble to get ready before my kids wake up. Since moving my phone, I have slept better (no more late night time wasting in bed) and I have gotten up at 5 more reliably. I'm not really a morning person, but I enjoy the morning schedule better than my previous "schedule" (kids wake me up by screaming).
- crankylinuxuser 8y agoI take it you don't have a cat meowing in your ear, because they want morning food?
- philip1209 8y agoI use my Google Home now as an alarm clock
- bgeeek 8y agoI'm trying it out at the moment, although I find it too easy to snooze or turn-off, which is different from using Timely on my phone, placed across the room. Also trying Alexa at different time intervals.
- LeoPanthera 8y agoI have an analogue bedside clock that uses WWVB to set the time. It's one of my most valued possessions, in fact. I hate digital clocks.
- ergothus 8y agoDo you have a non-subjective reason to hate digital clocks? I have a strong dislike for analog clocks - hard to read at a glance, and even a .1 second delay in translating the display to a useful time feels wasted (and I spend more time than that because I double check myself, because I'm wrong too often). An answer like "for some reason manufacturers only use garishly bright LEDs" is (too) true, but not really about it being digital (c'mon eink!), while answer like "I find analog clocks to be prettier/more elegant" can be true but is clearly subjective. I've just never understood the desire to have a clock that doesn't tell the time but instead shows some foreign representation of the common understanding of time (and not too precisely at that). That doesn't mean there is no argument I'd find persuasive, I've just not heard it yet. Care to share?
- LeoPanthera 8y agoWhen I read a digital clock, I have to mentally translate it into a picture of an analogue clock before I feel like I "understand" what time it is. It's probably just how I was brought up.
- ergothus 8y ago...completely not an answer I was expecting. It makes as much as sense as my complaint of the opposite though. (well, maybe 80% as much sense, but I'm also biased.) . Thanks for the answer!
- PascLeRasc 8y agoI'm the same way, especially with hearing a time verbally, or thinking about a stretch of time like "this meeting will take two hours".
- rsl7 8y ago
- kradeelav 8y agoLots of people use manual alarm clocks for different reasons. Mine doubles as a vibrating alarm as I'm both a heavy sleeper and don't hear at night. Honestly though, I'm still shocked at the number of people who are on a screen that soon. That can't be healthy for the eyes.
- 1auralynn 8y agoI don't use an alarm clock, but I'm privileged to set my own schedule. I think I check my phone ~5 minutes after waking though. For a while I put it to charge in another room, which I think was healthier - I might do that again.
- echevil 8y agoAnother condition in the study is "within 1 minute". I guess the other 3 are just slower in their waking up process :)
- raws 8y agoMy alarm is the 5mins long hourly news bulletin that does not require data :)
- cimmanom 8y agoI do in order to be able to keep the phone somewhere that it will not tempt me into looking at it when I'm supposed to be sleeping.
- QuercusMax 8y agoI have my phone plugged in on a table that's close to my bed (within 3 feet), but far enough away that I have to get out of bed to use it while plugged in. Since starting the day with an out-of-battery phone isn't very pleasant, it's been very effective at preventing phone use before bed. It still works fine for alarms, or, if I'm on call, pages.
- recursive 8y agoI use a clock as a clock. Crazy, right?
- bitxbitxbitcoin 8y agoDoes hitting snooze on the phone count as checking?
- colomon 8y ago... it's effectively my clock. Checking what time it is when you wake up is in no way strange, is it?
- mortivore 8y agoIt is in fact my only clock unless you count the microwave or laptop. It is also my only alarm.
- chias 8y agoSimplify your life by moving your microwave to your bedroom, setting it to cook on the lowest setting for 6 hours when you go to bed ;)
- sieabahlpark 8y agoIt even acts as a white noise machine as a free bonus.
- njarboe 8y agoAnd a humidifier if you put a big bowl of water in it.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- labster 8y agoThat's unhealthy, you really need more than six hours of sleep.
- zanny 8y agoAs someone who does need 8 hours I can't help but be jealous of those who function on 6. If I only get 6 hours of sleep I can't even see straight all day.
- sparrish 8y agoAh, the life of an on-call sysadmin.
- iamdave 8y agoHeh was about to post something similar, I'm not even on-call most of the time, I still check Slack when I wake up to see what happened to the person who was on call-if anything, since there's a 99.9% chance I'm getting roped in the second I get to my office. Best be prepared for it. Not that I'm complaining about this, it just is what it is. (Also because there's a sports radio show that isn't broadcast nationally from my hometown and I like to listen in as I'm waking up/getting ready for the day)
- quotemstr 8y agoAn intentionally limited device like an old-fashioned pager might work. I know it doesn't make logical sense to limit functionality: one might ask, "can't you just limit phone use to urgent notification instead of limiting yourself to a device that's physically limited to notifications?" Well, yes, but people don't work that way.
- andrewfromx 8y agoHow often do you place a blindfold on when you first wake up and spend a few hours with life without sight? Your phone is your 6th sense and it’s part of you now same way your eyes are. It’s called being a “cyborg” and we are all that now. And it will only get more integrated with surgery soon. Imagine bluetooth connections from chip in your head to phone in your pocket. Google search with your mind without looking at your phone. That changes school doesn’t it? Kids will have no choice but to get the surgery to compete.
- aaaaaaaaaab 8y agoI sometimes feel the temptation to check it even during the night when I briefly wake up to roll over or something.
- InGodsName 8y agoThey must be checking stackdriver or cloudwatch alarms. Nothing wrong with that.
- aasasd 8y agoRookie numbers. I'm checking the phone in between the cycles of sleep.
- quotemstr 8y agoI've lately imposed a rule on myself: no electronics in my bedroom whatsoever. I've slept sounder and longer as a result, and I've noticed a greater propensity to get out of bed earlier and be more productive when I do wake up. The only trouble is that I've only been able to abide by this rule 75% or so of the time --- it's easy to make an exception because I want to just finish this one testcase or something, and then I end up staying up much later than I intended and wasting time on bullshit in the morning. These brain extension devices are sticky.
- localhost 8y agoGood for you! I've recently gone on a journey to eliminate smartphones from my life. I'm now on day 11 and counting and couldn't be happier: https://twitter.com/john_lam/status/1074527089569615872 https://twitter.com/john_lam/status/1074527089569615872
- blhack 8y agoI'm really curious what the other 3 people do. I wake up before my wife, so I usually grab my phone, or laptop usually, and start checking news, planning my day etc. before she is up. Do people just sit there and stare at the ceiling or what?
- warent 8y agoWake up; get out of bed; have a hot drink; maybe breakfast/workout; hygiene routine. It's not that esoteric, and surely you remember a time before smartphones?
- blhack 8y agoYeah, before smartphones people turned on the news first thing in the morning. They used to have traffic reports for your commute, weather, breaking news etc. People even had radios and sometimes televisions in the bathroom to listen to this while they showered.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- garmaine 8y agoThey had AM/FM radio alarm clocks tuned to a news channel. Is that really any different?
- cimmanom 8y agoI'd get out of bed, retrieve the paper, and read it over breakfast. Not really all that different from reading the news online over breakfast.
- warent 8y agoStill arguably better than waking up, grabbing the paper immediately, and reading it probably before even getting out of bed--which is what the article is about. To me, that's very different from getting out of bed, retrieving the paper, and reading it over breakfast.
- flattone 8y agoI'm sorry for the terribly not valuable comment here but best time to use "DUH" ever . . IMO. knowing this kind of thing can be useful for various technical reasons even product management could benefit from this kind of information. I guess my key takeaway is it's a good reminder that painfully obvious information when presented with numbers can still be kind of interesting
- izzydata 8y agoI can turn off the alarm on my phone without really looking at it and don't actually "check" my phone until I get to work an hour later. The question of what constitutes "checking" your phone is probably ambiguous.
- sys_64738 8y agoIt is my alarm clock as I don't think I could figure out how to use a regular alarm clock. They all have lots of confusing buttons and pushing that indented button with a sharp object is really annoying.
- ken 8y agoI can't tell if this is a joke comment or not. What "indented button"? My alarm clock has 2 buttons (hour and minute), and 2 switches (alarm on/off, and set time / set alarm / run). Not at all unusual: it's basically just a clock-on-a-chip that was used by lots of brands. If you can figure out the C=64 reset system call, you can figure out an alarm clock.
- sys_64738 8y agoOur ability to use buttons will wither out in years to come as phones don't have buttons. When I pick up an old school alarm clock my natural inclination is to flick the LED digits up or down but it doesn't work. The indented button is on every alarm clock to prevent you pressing it accidentally. Google some early 80s alarm clocks to see examples.
- ken 8y agoMy alarm clock is from the early 1980's. All of the buttons are more prominent and many times bigger than any of the buttons on my 2010's smartphone.
- kzrdude 8y agoMy problem used to be I check GitHub a minute after waking up.
- GlenTheMachine 8y agoBefore I had a smartphone, I had an alarm clock set to wake me up by playing NPR at 7:00. I would lie in bed and listen to Morning Edition, just to make sure the world hadn't blown up while I was asleep. Today the alarm clock is set to buzz. I (literally) roll out of bed onto the floor and check the Washington Post app. To make sure the world hasn't blown up while I was asleep. Is there a significant difference here?
- gregmac 8y ago> How long do you wait after waking up before you pick up your smartphone and check your texts, notifications, or social media apps? This narrative has bothered me since I was a teenager, though back then it was just "using the computer". I have always looked at these devices as multi-purpose tools. I did not want to "use the computer" -- I wanted to play a game. Or learn how to code. Or create music. Or read news. Or talk to my friends. Or watch a movie. The device is merely a means to an end, not the goal itself. In other words, I was not interested in coding because it meant using a computer, I was interested in coding because you can build things and solve problems in interesting and mentally stimulating ways. I enjoy messing around with electronics and working on my house for the same reasons -- not because I was looking for an excuse to use a soldering iron or circular saw. To lump these activities together makes no sense. They happen to use the same device, but that's it. I wake up and turn off the alarm on my phone. Once I actually get out of bed, I'll also notice if there are any texts -- it rarely happens but if someone texts me really early in the morning or overnight, it's probably something really important. What I don't do is check work e-mails or social media. There's usually some notification sitting there for that, but there pretty much always is, and it's easy to just ignore.
- vertexFarm 8y agoThat's kind of reductive. The medium matters for any activity or information. You can't just discount the medium. Whether for good or bad, the existence of phones has changed the human condition. Perhaps irreversibly. It's not just how we consume news or work. It's a very personal change. Remember in the nineties how we'd all have to plan ahead of time to meet up with friends or family or go on a date or whatever? You had to wait until evening, call when they would be home or leave a message, set up a time and place, and stick to it because once you left the house you couldn't coordinate further. So whether or not that's good or bad is beside the point. It is a profoundly different method of socializing. Communication was sparse and delayed and you couldn't change plans or cancel 30 minutes ahead of time without looking like a dick. We are different for this. In some ways good, in some ways bad, but we have such a poor understanding of how it's working for us in the greater scheme of things that this fact alone should be somewhat alarming. And no, you can't just choose not to participate. Not having a smartphone on your person at all times and being always connected, always reachable, and always able to be obliged to work or respond or go do something at another's command is now tantamount to not participating in society. Before this existed, we did a lot of the same activities in other ways as you said, but the restrictions of the medium we had available truly did change how it all worked in a tangible way. Yes, a similar thing happened with radio and land lines and other forms of technology before, but the extent of the change was lesser. The developments of the past ten or twenty years are so much more efficient and powerful and difficult to evade that they deserve unique consideration.
- gaspoweredcat 8y agoi fail to see why this is different than the act of turning on the tv, reading the paper or whatever else people did to keep up to date in the days before digital communication
- aqibgatoo 8y agoTurning off alarms and checking time is a norm.
- rhacker 8y ago> Nearly half of the respondents feel “unsafe” if they’re in an area without any service. So it's the other half that have applied to go to Mars right?
- grogenaut 8y agoI mean the phone is my clock now... so yeah I check it and go bck to sleep. It's also my alarm, if I don't check the phone it keeps making noises.
- superkuh 8y agoI only check my phone for texts maybe once or half a time per day. Sometimes longer if I forget. It's easy since I don't carry the phone with me and it's a dumb phone that can barely even do texting. That said, I'm usually checking my main desktop computer and IRC within a minute of waking up.
- slededit 8y agoI love catching up on the news in bed after waking up. Best part of the morning.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Raidion 8y agoThis whole thing is just a large amount of click bait. Ok, 1 in 4 adults check the phone less than a minute after waking up. 1 in 4 adults probably use the bathroom within 5 minutes of checking their phone! This is just to offend those who do check their phone (which is also their alarm) when they wake up (which generates clicks), and to make those who don't check their phone when they wake up feel superior (which generates clicks).
- randyrand 8y agoAlternate title: 1 in 4 adults uses their phone as a clock.
- godshatter 8y agoI check mine immediately, because it's in my hand since I just turned the alarm off. I almost can't not check it, since I'll see whatever notifications are on the home screen after I've touched the cancel button unless I go out of my way to look away. Not that the alarm wakes me up very often. I almost always wake up a few minutes before it goes off. Even in different time zones. Not sure how my body does that. So technically I probably don't check it less than a minute after waking up, just a few seconds after the alarm goes off.
- Markoff 8y agofirst thing i check are emails so i can see how many tasks/protects are awaiting me and can plan my day, does this mean i am some addict if i wanna know what awaits me especially when later i need to prepare breakfast for child, prepare and take him to kindergarten and then depending on the content of mailbox go home rush to work (i prefer to do tasks ASAP so they won't accumulate) or can go somewhere outside to do shopping or something else
- ilaksh 8y agoPeople need to wake up on time, check what time it is, find out if someone tried to contact them while they were sleeping, and see if anything interesting happened in the news. So of course they are going to look at their phones. I hope the statistic is completely wrong because otherwise there seem to be a ton of people who don't know how to use a phone properly.
- Waterluvian 8y agoWithin seconds I check what time it is. I check to see if my wife left any notes about how my newborn or toddler slept. I check to see if my dad wants lunch today. I check to see what the weather will be. My phone provides important information that will shape my day. I'm wholly shame free about how I use it.
- biql 8y agoI miss the time when I didn't have Internet connection, mobile phone, and had no one to distract me for 8 hours per day. I didn't have anything important to work on since I was a kid, but I remember I was able to concentrate on things for much longer and it was more enjoyable. I didn't have to exert any will power since I didn't have a lot of alternatives with regards to what to do with the computer and that simple stuff I was doing was providing enough of dopamine to keep me hooked. After reflecting back on that time, I'm starting to appreciate good old printed books, simple audio player that isn't connected to any kind of streaming service, offline documentation for libraries that make it possible to do some work without internet. There is something special about those hours of disconnect.
- j00pY 8y agoI schedule in 5 mins when my alarm goes off to read reddit. For me, doing this extremely useful as my brain spins up and I feel like I do not want to go back to sleep.