
Survey: 1 In 4 Adults Checks Phone Less Than A Minute After Waking Up - spking
https://www.studyfinds.org/survey-quarter-checks-phones-less-than-minute-after-waking/
======
gregmac
> 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
That'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.

~~~
nitwit005
It's not always socializing though. Plenty of people have canceled their paper
newspaper subscription in favor of getting the same paper on their phone.
There's some difference in medium, but it's not a particularly significant
shift.

------
colomon
... it's effectively my clock. Checking what time it is when you wake up is in
no way strange, is it?

~~~
mortivore
It is in fact my only clock unless you count the microwave or laptop. It is
also my only alarm.

~~~
chias
Simplify 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 ;)

~~~
labster
That's unhealthy, you really need more than six hours of sleep.

~~~
zanny
As 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.

~~~
6cd6beb
>I can't help but be jealous of those who function on 6.

Don't be. Hell I can "function" with my shoes tied together.

I can "function" with some marijuana and some whiskey in my system.

I can "function" on 4 hours of sleep. It's an awful day and I'm more rude and
impatient, but if I did it for years I'd be telling people I can fully
function on 4 hours with no negative side effects.

~~~
antisthenes
Shower-thought: Maybe the problem to many people being assholes is just not
getting enough sleep?

~~~
farazzz
I get like 8-9 hours of sleep and I’m still an asshole

------
mikejulietbravo
Does 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.

~~~
pranalli
Nobody uses an alarm clock after having kids.

~~~
bluGill
Wait until they are in school. Left to his own - 5 year old wakes up at 6:00
on weekends, and 7:30 on school days (the bus arrives at 7:00).

~~~
freeflight
This kinda annoyed me as a kid, but I also remember the reason for it: Early
morning kids shows/cartoons on TV, during the weekends, was a big factor for
being up so early.

Tho with VoD dominating all entertainment, what are kids doing nowadays when
waking up early at a Saturday?

~~~
swasheck
Fortnite

------
andrewfromx
How 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.

------
biql
I 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.

------
blhack
I'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
Wake 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
Yeah, 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.

------
izzydata
I 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.

------
quotemstr
I'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
Good 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)

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sparrish
Ah, the life of an on-call sysadmin.

~~~
iamdave
Heh 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)

------
GlenTheMachine
Before 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?

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pelagic_sky
My 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
You know that you can preload memes on your phone for offline usage, right?

~~~
pelagic_sky
Finally! Life has meaning again! :)

------
Waterluvian
Within 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.

------
aaaaaaaaaab
I sometimes feel the temptation to check it even during the night when I
briefly wake up to roll over or something.

------
godshatter
I 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.

------
aasasd
Rookie numbers. I'm checking the phone in between the cycles of sleep.

------
bitxbitxbitcoin
Does hitting snooze on the phone count as checking?

------
superkuh
I 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.

------
sys_64738
It 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
I 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
Our 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
My 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.

------
j00pY
I 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.

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gaspoweredcat
i 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

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Markoff
first 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

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grogenaut
I 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.

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rhacker
> 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?

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flattone
I'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

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ilaksh
People 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.

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slededit
I love catching up on the news in bed after waking up. Best part of the
morning.

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kzrdude
My problem used to be I check GitHub a minute after waking up.

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randyrand
Alternate title: 1 in 4 adults uses their phone as a clock.

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aqibgatoo
Turning off alarms and checking time is a norm.

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InGodsName
They must be checking stackdriver or cloudwatch alarms. Nothing wrong with
that.

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Raidion
This 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).

