5 ms·
The data is interesting, but I am always skeptical of self-reported sleep times. It seems there is a sense of pride some people take in sleeping less than other
by taxcoder 6y ago
The data is interesting, but I am always skeptical of self-reported sleep times. It seems there is a sense of pride some people take in sleeping less than others.
- jb775 6y agoWould be interesting to look at smart watch data to see actual averages. You can tell when a person is sleeping by watching their motion activity (obviously) in combination with a drop in heart rate.
- Berobero 6y agoThere's definitely reason to be suspect, although it looks like, on the average, it might be the reverse of what you seem to be expecting (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2785092/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2785092/): "Our model suggests that persons sleeping 5 and 7 hours over-reported, on average, by 1.3 and 0.3 hours respectively." For self-reporting sleep studies, perhaps people have it in their head that 8 hours is how much they're "supposed" to sleep and they over-report to better match that? Of note, however, while the CDC data I linked comes from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System which does appear to be merely a self-reporting survey question (https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/surveillance.html https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/surveillance.html), the data in the Economist article comes from an app (www.sleepcycle.com). Granted, I suspect the latter almost surely suffers from some kind of non-trivial selection bias.