I'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.
> 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.
Wait 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).
lol 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).
This 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.
This 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.
Nobody wants to avoid the behavior when punishment is introduced, they want to avoid the punishment itself. Typically speaking, this is done by circumventing the punishment, rather than correcting the behavior. Besides, (almost) nobody purposely sleeps through their final - especially not if they take the time to ask someone to be a backup alarm. You'd be advocating for punishment of an accident at that point, which is aggressively useless at best, and sadistic at worst.
I'm pretty sure the consensus is that positive reinforcement, when used consistently and over a long time, can be used without any negative reinforcement and still get the requisite training results. That's leaving aside the fact that negative reinforcement is bad for the relationship with your child and/or pet.
Completely on this subject though, I find the behaviour in question here insane. Mostly because adults are supposed to be independent and competent. Of course, not everyone is raised equally. If this works for them, who are we to judge?
I recently decided to wake up earlier (have kids, wanted an hour or so to myself before they woke up), so I started going to get earlier. Instead of an alarm in the morning, I have an alarm at night so I remember to go to bed on time.
For something as important as a final, you should be getting a full night's rest. It's just not worth whatever little you can cram in the night before.
Having a physical being call you before important event is absolutely sane. And I give explicit instructions - do not hang up until you hear me in the shower
If something is that important, I schedule something just before. E.g. for a final, I'll schedule an hour of study right before and go to bed early. That way if I'm late to that first thing in the morning, I still make the important event.
The only time I asked someone to wake me up was for an early morning (started at 7 or something) class I took with my roommate. We went together, so we agreed that we'd both make sure the other was up. After that semester, I never signed up for an early morning class again (but I did okay in the class though!).
Stuff figured out = waking up on time for an exam? There are certainly things that aren't going to be figured out by college but dang, you're setting the bar madd low.
It's figuring out how not to oversleep for an important occasion, not figuring out the meaning of life... I mean, some people this age are working responsible jobs or serving in the military.
Sure, but your backup plan probably should not involve one of your parents getting up extra early to give you a wake up call. But to each their own, I guess.
This is one of the reasons that pre-booking taxis is a good idea. Typically, they'll call you when they arrive, so they are a really good back-up alarm clock.
It's not admirable; it's textbook helicopter parenting and it's pathetic. I can't believe people ITT are actually defending this crap.
An 18yo who can't get themselves out of bed, eat, shower, wipe their hiney, etc. all by themselves has no place in college IMO. Seriously, that's short bus level stuff.
Yes, certainly. No argument. But when the stakes are high, a little back up doesn't hurt. It is just as much an excuse for some last minute good wishes anyway.
In any case, everybody has different circumstances. Parenting is an improvisational pursuit, every kid has different needs. In my kid's case, end-of-semester sleep deprivation has more than typical impact because of hypothyroidism that requires carefully adjusted medication and really benefits from a regular sleep schedule. Engineering school? Regular sleep schedule? Pffft. So I cut some slack. Their tendency to over-sleep alarms is partly wonky body chemistry.
I recall oversleeping for a final. Luckily, it was an intro programming, you-mean-I-can't-test-out-of-this?? class. I walked in a hour late, and left a 1/2 hour early. Had that been DiffEQ or similar.... errrf.
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?
that's just myth, my 1yo wakes around 630-700 and 3yo would sleep even until 0720 if i would let him (sometimes i have to go to his bed and need alarm to wake us and not miss kindergarten) and i know luckier people whose children wake up even later and we are putting children to bed around 1915-2000, i don't think it's extremely late, can't really imagine much earlier unless moving dinner before 6
It'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?
Or 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.
I 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).
Yeah, 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.
I'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.
Do 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?
...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.) .
the normal argument for analogue gauges is the additional information they convey in terms of context. might not matter for your clock. but most of the time the specific minute doesn't matter, so it's unnecessary detail. I'm not translating the analog clock image to numbers in my head; the image of the hands, the spacing of the minute hand - the quadrant it is in and how close it is to the boundary is enough. digital clocks dominate our digital environment though, .. so whatever.
I 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.
I 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.
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.
>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.
That doesn't fly when you're married. The always on display on the S8 is a lifesaver though - bright enough to see the time at 2am, but dim enough that you don't blind yourself doing so.
why not use watch? i bought Amazfit Bip which i wear 24/7 (ok take away few minutes for shower since i don't feel comfortable taking shower work watch despite being waterproof) and can only praise it, 6 weeks battery life with 24/7 Bluetooth notifications, measuring heart rate every ten minutes (every minute seem excessive and poetically world reduce battery life a bit) and pedometer
to not look at phone for every notification you receive (which also save battery) or to see the time? also it should be stated that thanks to notifications on my wrist i have my phone basically 24/7 in DND mode not bothering other people with any sounds, only sound i user it's alarm maybe twice a day just in case and timer when cooking, although they bought go also to my watch. i can also track my sleep and heart rate, but the real reason to buy it were notifications
i was also watch hater but it's very light, you when forget it's on hand absolutely not comparable to my father's Garmin fenix brick with battery life few hours
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)
An 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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
Still 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.
I get out of bed and walk to the kitchen (admittedly, only about 15 feet across a studio apartment) before reaching for my phone, but it's still within a minute of waking up.
I've been actively denying myself access to my phone when I wake up. I had gotten into the undesirable habit of reading reddit for like thirty minutes every morning.
Yea, that means I sometimes doze a bit sitting on the john. It does mean I'm at the point where I'm ready to do something productive in ten minutes after getting out of bed, though.
Because like writing this exact comment its not really doing anything. I'm not accomplishing goals reading your reply, I'm not really forming a connection with you or anyone else on these type of sites. Once you use them for a few years you start just seeing the trend of the front page coming before you even get to it, and it just turns into a positive feedback loop for the belief system you adopted from the subreddits / HN you visit.
I should be working on a CSS grid layout I've been fighting with all week but instead I'm checking comments on HN. Fortunately I've gone from doing it four times a day to about two - in both cases, while im eating - but nobody needs to be "informed" every single day. You'll pick up the stuff that really matters even if you wade out of the stream for a while.
Go to the bathroom, brush your teeth and make breakfast? That's what I do.
I've noticed the tendency to check my phone/computer when I wake up, and I consciously try to avoid it. Checking within a minute really a sign of addiction, just like people who smoke a cigarette in bed after waking (and yes I knew somebody who did this.)
I definitely don't check my phone/computer within a minute of waking up. Probably 10 or 15 minutes on a good day, 3-5 minutes on a bad day.
I've read that the reason for this is to clear your mouth of the bacteria that have accumulated overnight, otherwise you're going to be consuming them with your food.
I do, but I also hardly eat breakfast. Grew up this way. Not brushing my teeth in the morning right before a shower seems completely neanderthal. It also alleviates chronic dry mouth.
Checking the time, news, see if there's any messages you should respond to, see if there's a reminder, checking your calendar. It's not a sign of addiction to check your phone the second you wake up.
When were you born? I'm not trying to be insulting or snarky, it's just that this state of mind is so different from mine and I'm curious. I think even a lot of people who lived before smartphones and home computers have forgotten what it's like.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
Both points are very important. One tells you that there's a systemic issue, while the other reminds you that you can adapt and be better off at the end of the day.
I find the discussion around sugar very similar, where some stress how sugar made everyone fat and caused diabetes and then you've got the other side pointing out that inherently there's no problem [0], sugar just causes some to overeat, and you should watch your calorie intake.
[0] it's a little different in that whether there is or isn't inherently a problem still isn't exactly settled science
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.
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
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.
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).
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 159 ms ] threadBut 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.
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.
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_conditioning
As long as it's a rare occurrence, I don't really see the problem here.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/feeling-our-way/2014...
Nobody wants to avoid the behavior when punishment is introduced, they want to avoid the punishment itself. Typically speaking, this is done by circumventing the punishment, rather than correcting the behavior. Besides, (almost) nobody purposely sleeps through their final - especially not if they take the time to ask someone to be a backup alarm. You'd be advocating for punishment of an accident at that point, which is aggressively useless at best, and sadistic at worst.
Completely on this subject though, I find the behaviour in question here insane. Mostly because adults are supposed to be independent and competent. Of course, not everyone is raised equally. If this works for them, who are we to judge?
I recently decided to wake up earlier (have kids, wanted an hour or so to myself before they woke up), so I started going to get earlier. Instead of an alarm in the morning, I have an alarm at night so I remember to go to bed on time.
For something as important as a final, you should be getting a full night's rest. It's just not worth whatever little you can cram in the night before.
The only time I asked someone to wake me up was for an early morning (started at 7 or something) class I took with my roommate. We went together, so we agreed that we'd both make sure the other was up. After that semester, I never signed up for an early morning class again (but I did okay in the class though!).
An 18yo who can't get themselves out of bed, eat, shower, wipe their hiney, etc. all by themselves has no place in college IMO. Seriously, that's short bus level stuff.
In any case, everybody has different circumstances. Parenting is an improvisational pursuit, every kid has different needs. In my kid's case, end-of-semester sleep deprivation has more than typical impact because of hypothyroidism that requires carefully adjusted medication and really benefits from a regular sleep schedule. Engineering school? Regular sleep schedule? Pffft. So I cut some slack. Their tendency to over-sleep alarms is partly wonky body chemistry.
I recall oversleeping for a final. Luckily, it was an intro programming, you-mean-I-can't-test-out-of-this?? class. I walked in a hour late, and left a 1/2 hour early. Had that been DiffEQ or similar.... errrf.
Tho with VoD dominating all entertainment, what are kids doing nowadays when waking up early at a Saturday?
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.
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).
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.
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?
It's probably just how I was brought up.
Thanks for the answer!
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.
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.
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.
Now notice that the current US President has been severely sleep deprived every day for decades.
And I don't time it, it's on all night.
I have to carry my phone with me anyway, so why should I have a watch?
i was also watch hater but it's very light, you when forget it's on hand absolutely not comparable to my father's Garmin fenix brick with battery life few hours
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)
I should also note I easily spend 5 days in the wilderness with no phone connection at all.
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.
Do people just sit there and stare at the ceiling or what?
People even had radios and sometimes televisions in the bathroom to listen to this while they showered.
Yea, that means I sometimes doze a bit sitting on the john. It does mean I'm at the point where I'm ready to do something productive in ten minutes after getting out of bed, though.
I should be working on a CSS grid layout I've been fighting with all week but instead I'm checking comments on HN. Fortunately I've gone from doing it four times a day to about two - in both cases, while im eating - but nobody needs to be "informed" every single day. You'll pick up the stuff that really matters even if you wade out of the stream for a while.
I've noticed the tendency to check my phone/computer when I wake up, and I consciously try to avoid it. Checking within a minute really a sign of addiction, just like people who smoke a cigarette in bed after waking (and yes I knew somebody who did this.)
I definitely don't check my phone/computer within a minute of waking up. Probably 10 or 15 minutes on a good day, 3-5 minutes on a bad day.
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
The question of what constitutes "checking" your phone is probably ambiguous.
If you can figure out the C=64 reset system call, you can figure out an alarm clock.
The indented button is on every alarm clock to prevent you pressing it accidentally. Google some early 80s alarm clocks to see examples.
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?
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.
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.
[0] it's a little different in that whether there is or isn't inherently a problem still isn't exactly settled science
So it's the other half that have applied to go to Mars right?
That said, I'm usually checking my main desktop computer and IRC within a minute of waking up.
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).