The New York Times has a reputation for running silly trend stories, but I think the Wall Street Journal has them beat. They run an endless stream of trend stories backed up by virtually no evidence.
So naturally I was suspicious about their latest offering:
The Hottest New Bedtime for 20-Somethings Is 9 p.m.
This time, though, they did have some backup:
In 2022, those in their 20s reported getting an average of nine hours and 28 minutes of sleep, according to an analysis of American Time Use Survey data by RentCafe. That is an 8% increase from the eight hours and 47 minutes they said they slept in 2010. Those in their 30s and 40s saw smaller increases.
Bedtimes are also creeping earlier. An analysis of more than two million total Sleep Number smart-bed customers found that those between 18 and 34 went to bed at 10:06 p.m. on average in January, compared with 10:18 p.m. last January.
Hmmm. The Sleep Number thing is a little creepy, but OK. And I don't know why the Journal had to rely on a time use analysis by RentCafe. It's all public data. So here it is, straight from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Time Use Survey:
As you can see, sleep time for everyone has been going up, and it's been going up for at least the past two decades. There's nothing either new or age-dependent about this: it's happened to every single age group all the way up to 65+.
So once again we have a groundless trend story. It's not that the Journal's numbers are wrong, just that they're presented without the context that would let you know there's nothing new to report here.
POSTSCRIPT: One of the annoying things about stuff like this is that there is a story here. The story is that we're all sleeping about half an hour more than we used to. Why? But instead the Journal had to somehow squeeze out a trend piece about those wacky kids these days, regardless of whether it made any sense.
... the Journal had to somehow squeeze out a trend piece about those wacky kids these days, regardless of whether it made any sense.
Well that's certainly a surprise given the demographics of the WSJ's readership!
I've been tracking my sleep daily for the last 5 years. It's remained rock steady at 6h 40m to 6h 45m on average. n=1 and all, so I suppose maybe people really are sleeping more than they used to. Which is probably a good thing because everybody was probably short on sleep before.
However, it also makes me question whether there's a self-reporting or data collection hiccup in there that's tied to cultural perceptions of sleep.
Why?
The obvious suspect would be that electronic screen use does something to disturb the REM cycle, but I can't really speak to that since my sleep duration hasn't changed a bit at all over this time period. Or before it.
My guess is that people go to bed at 9:00, then spend 90 minutes on their phone before actually going to sleep.
As I get older I'm sleeping much less, like 6 hours. Bucking the trend, as usual.
That's the usual expectation. But as I get older -- mid-60s now -- I'm sleeping MORE. All I can figure is I'm psycho, but alas, it's entirely evident to both the counselors and me that there's no help there, so ...
Yep. I used to be a regular 10:00 to 6:00. Now I’m 11:30 to 5:30.
Probably the thing that is making everyone sleep more is the same thing that is making everyone fatter. What ever that is.
Even the lab animals, whose caloric intakes have been closely monitored, recorded, and regulated over many years, have been getting fatter on the same number of calories.
Plasticizers in the diet are messing up both human and animal endocrine systems. One result of that is getting fat.
Why? Because neither Carson nor Letterman are on late night, and SNL is no longer worth staying up for 🙂
The articles cited say they ask about time people "went to bed", not went to sleep. And everyone has big screen TV's in their bedrooms now, so....we need another massive power outage to get a baby boom.
Who are these people that are sleeping more than 9 hours on average? I sleep more than 8 hours maybe once or twice a month. My average is probably a little over six.
All I know is someone else out there is getting an hour extra.
Who are these lunatic sleeping 8 hours? I'm lucky to get 5 1/2.
A lot of people are monitoring their sleep via sleep applications on smart watches. If I was self reporting in the past I would be way less accurate than I would be today. I don’t know if this effects these statistics.
Maybe the smartwatches are the issue. Mine often counts my reading in bed time as sleep.
My CPAP tells me I'm sleeping 9-9 1/4 hours a night. And I'm 74. I sleep longer now that I am retired.
The sleep number thing is creepy.
Obviously it's the lack of disturbing news that has led people to rest more easily -- and this is just one more example! I blame the mainstream media. As usual. /s
I've always felt like I needed more sleep than my spouse (she agrees). Last spring I bought a fitbit which I initially used for fitness but also used to track my sleep. Over time I stopped caring much about anything it showed EXCEPT my sleep data.
If I woke up refreshed and clearheaded I could check against the fitbit data and unsurpringly there was a good correlation. What I just noticed is that I spent most of last year averaging about 6 1/2 hours of sleep. Since I retired a month ago I have been averaging over 7 hours. Of course there are many other variables but there's no question I feel much better and I think I function much better too. I wish I had concentrated more on getting better sleep in the last few years of my work career (in software). I think I would have been happier and more productive.
So my feeling is that if if people - especially younger people - are getting more sleep, then that's a good thing. Maybe it will show up in things like productivity as well. Maybe all those type A's who claim to need only 3-4 hours of sleep are wrong. Go back to bed Elon. Maybe you'll be less of an a-hole.
As long as that doesn't result in more Musk progeny, for the world's sake & to spare more kids from absurd unpronuncable first names.
David Letterman retired from the Late Show May 2015. His replacement and none of the other shows are not good enough to keep viewers out of bed.
Why watch it live when it's on YouTube a few hours later and you can watch it whenever?
“ One of the annoying things about stuff like this is that there is a story here.”
Well gosh, Mr. Drum, it made you click and comment too! It’s a story to justify advertising sales. Did you buy that junk in the ad you saw while reading it?
We're not ALL getting more sleep- just those not in a unit below a succession of renters sounding like storm troopers walking at all hours, enough to rattle windows & make the floorboards creak.
How I envy those sleeping over nine hours!
And then there were the men hired by the HOA to wield snow shovels - at 2:30 in the morning...
In my experience, we are at our best for about 4-6 hours a day, depending on how old we are. After that, if we really did our best, we're tired. And need the sleep to have another go again tomorrow. So this is encouraging news. And I hope it's by conscious choice by those still working day jobs. I assume it is. And it's consequences seem already evident in the fairly astounding economic news over the past year or two. But, consciously or not, I wish I knew how they did that extra half-hour of sleep a day. Maybe just exhaustion.
I am just going to say that there is literally no way people in their 20s are getting nearly 9.5 hours of sleep every night on AVERAGE. So half of people in their 20s are getting more than that? Just how much pot are these people smoking?
I recommend reading Matthew Walker's book "Why We Sleep". Fascinating. One point he makes is that most adults really do need about eight hours of sleep a night, give or take an hour or so. There are a few people who are short sleepers, but far fewer than the number who claim they only need 4 or 5 hours of sleep a night. Most people who slept only that long for a few nights did markedly worse on memory tests than people who got the full eight hours. They don't realize how impaired the lack of sleep makes them, and how being tired makes mental tasks harder and makes people much less efficient. So, get those forty winks. Since the pandemic, I have been sleeping more, usually 7 or 8 hours a night, and I do feel much better.
The data of course is self reported. The purported trend may be an artifact from the way people estimate how much they sleep (they are not using a sleep timer do they?).
For example: they have been told they ought to have at least 8 hours a night. So they "remember" their habit in such a way as to be close to those 8 hours. Or they don't count their Fridays when they are out with their buddies until midnight. Those are exceptions, are they not?