Slashdot Mirror
World's Northernmost Town Gets Nightlights
Velcroman1 writes "On October 26, 2,000 Norwegians watched the sun set. The next time they'll see it rise? Sometime in February. Extended nighttime is an annual occurrence for the residents of Longyearbyen, Norway — Earth's northernmost town. Located at 78 degrees north latitude in the Arctic circle, Longyearbyen experiences a phenomenon called Polar Night, in which the town remains in perpetual darkness for four months each winter. To lighten up the seemingly endless night, Philips has started an experiment called 'Wake Up the Town.' And anyone who's complained about the brief daylight hours in winter will want to know how it works."
I understand your joke, but it can still be done.
You tell your subjects you're testing one thing, but you're testing another (with or without the knowledge of the tester).
With these lights one could set up two groups; saying you want to test who has more problems getting out of bed in the morning, those with a traditional alarm or those with the light-based alarm clock (which is what I know these devices for). And then over the course of a month or two you interview the subjects every week and in that interview ask about getting up, but actually rate them on depression/happiness. This way you at least eliminate (most of) the placebo effect, and may get some interesting side results too, like whether they actually work to get you out of bed easier, albeit those results are likely less reliable.
I live in Finland. Not as north as this town (obviously) but in a place with a few hours of light a day for a large part of the winter. And yes, it indeed causes a lot of depression. Or, I don't know whether one can say "Causes" but certainly amplifies. Let's say you're feeling down and then you won't see sunlight for a week (+don't feel like going outside because the temperature is at [-25C/-13F])... Yeah, it's a lot worse.
But different people react to it in different ways. A few days ago, some foreign exchange students asked my sister about how dark it gets in the mid-winter and how can they cope with the depression. She answered that if they aren't feeling down yet, they probably won't. I don't know if it is about genes, nutrition or what but some people just feel down because of the darkeness, others won't.
That brings me to the next subject... Actually, the mid-winter isn't the worst time. There is snow, a lot of it. It is cold and dark, sure... But the white snow is beautiful and any light that you have (stars, moon, northern lights, street lights...) is reflected from it in really nice way. The worst time for most people is actually late autumn: It is getting cold and and dark but you know that everything is only going to get colder and darker and there isn't any snow yet... When the mid-winter actually comes, people tend to be a lot happier. And they'll continue to get progressively more joyful all the way to the late summer.
Despite the downsides, I would never want to move to a country with different climate. There is something so very beautiful in this cycle of darkness and light... Captcha: Patriot
Nice, but my wife would kill me if I used something that would wake her too when I have to get up.
We use alarms for deaf people with a vibrator element that's put under the mattress cover, so only 1 person wakes up and not everybody else in the room/house.
Best thing I ever had.
http://www.harriscomm.com/catalog/default.php?cPath=42_123