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New Study Finds How Much Sleep Fitbit Users Really Get
Fitbit has published the results of a study that uses their longitudinal sleep database to analyze millions of nights of Sleep Stages data to determine how age, gender, and duration affect sleep quality. (Sleep Stages is a relatively new Fitbit feature that "uses motion detection and heart rate variability to estimate the amount of time users spend awake in light, deep, and REM sleep each night.") Here are the findings: The average Fitbit user is in bed for 7 hours and 33 minutes but only gets 6 hours and 38 minutes of sleep. The remaining 55 minutes is spent restless or awake. That may seem like a lot, but it's actually pretty common. That said, 6 hours and 38 minutes is still shy of the 7+ hours the the CDC recommends adults get. For the second year in a row Fitbit data scientists found women get about 25 minutes more sleep on average each night compared to men. The percentage of time spent in each sleep stage was also similar -- until you factor in age. Fitbit data shows that men get a slightly higher percentage of deep sleep than women until around age 55 when women take the lead. Women win when it comes to REM, logging an average of 10 more minutes per night than men. Although women tend to average more REM than men over the course of their lifetime, the gap appears to widen around age 50.
I guess moms don't use Fitbit? Especially moms of young kids.
What they really mean is "sex", which is biological.
So, women are sleeping 25 minutes more per night, or the equivalent of 6.3 days per year. At the U.S. life expectancy of 81.6, they're sleeping about 517 days more than men over their lifetimes. With men only living 79.3 years, it almost makes up for the difference.
Just another day in Paradise
This is all very interesting but, it's entirely from Fitbit data. Is there any information at all about how reliable this is? Are there similar studies that don't rely on cheap consumer devices?
Take to the streets my brothers to close this REM gender gap!!!
I physically can't get 8 hours (or more) every night or I get a weird headache and I feel groggy all day long. The sweet spot for me is around 7 hours.
WTF..?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I have a Garmin watch and it has a feature to monitor sleep patterns and I can say for a fact that it is wildly inaccurate. It can be off by 2-3 hours. It also doesn't account for catnaps that occur during the day.
uh.. since nightshift people are a minority of course average of x is going to be mostly about people sleeping in the night.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
you factor in the inaccuracies of the device? you might as well just roll a 1d10
When they say > 7h that's based on to self-reported sleep i.e. time in bed. How much fitbit-approved sleep a person needs should then probably be a lower number.
So despite their being responsible for the protection of life and property around the clock night shift workers are considered statistical out layers? I'm finding myself strangely sympathetic to those who use the term little "snowflake" right now despite my strong left leaning political view right this moment.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
If you read the summary (and have decent reading comprehension skills) then you would know that the fit bit doesn't use the time of day to determine sleep times. Like Santa Claus it knows if you are sleeping and knows if you're awake, so tone down the hyperbole and chill out for goodness sake!
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
So despite their being responsible for the protection of life and property around the clock night shift workers are considered statistical out layers? I'm finding myself strangely sympathetic to those who use the term little "snowflake" right now despite my strong left leaning political view right this moment.
If you say that Einstein was a statistical outlier in terms of intelligence, you're not criticising him for being clever.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Men enjoy sex for 25 minutes on average while their partner is fast asleep.
Incorrect - "Some fitbit users" better.
I have a fitbit. It is a clip-on type.
It doesn't know anything about sleep. It is a pedometer.
I don't wear it when sleeping.
So, the dumbed down headline AND dumbed down summary are incorrect. Lies, effectively. Fake news.
Demographics are skewed, but at least the title indicates that. This "survey" is only those who can afford a luxury item like a fitbit and aren't rich enough to give a damn about how many steps they walk. This is a really small slice of humans and as such a poor representation of how most people really sleep. It is like getting a survey of how many Big Gulps all Prius drivers drink.
I read the linked article, but it does not show the primary report, nor does it appear to have a link to it (if someone finds it, please help me out).
There's an important issue within human experimentation, and this study most certainly falls within that rubric: if you plan on publishing the results of the study, it is considered human research, and there are a host of regulations and ethical standards that we, as a society, have agreed must be met. First, there needs to be oversight by an Institutional Review Board. Where is that? Next there needs to be a statement of which articles of human rights during experimentation are being adhered to (nominally, it's the Helsinki Declaration). Where is that? Finally, there needs to be informed consent by the participants, even when, as in this work, it is purely anonymous and observational. The EULA does not count. Informed consent documents are short, simple documents that are written such that an 8 year old can understand them, and must be administered individually. Nominally, they require a signature (written consent), although for minimal risk studies, presumably like this one, oral consent is usually sufficient -- but in that case there still needs to be an experimenter administering consent. Individual administration clearly did not happen here.
Usually when companies do stuff like this, internal research, the fine details of ethics issues go out the door, which is usually OK for minimal risk studies (like Google playing with different color links to see which are most effective), as long as the results are not to be published. If they are going to be published, then no reputable journal would accept them without the fine ethical details taken care of. If the work is for internal use only, and will not be published, then the requirements do not apply.
At least that's the way it works in my world, and I do these sorts of experiments for a living.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
And I think unlike Santa Claus, fitbit knows when you're having sex.
#DeleteFacebook
It is a well established fact that he knows when you've been naughty.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
"10 minutes more" is well below the one-late-night-per-week effect. This could be nothing more than men have one restless night each week. Or men stay up late one night each week. Or thunder wakes up men more than women.
Or, of course, the men who use a fitbit don't sleep as much as the men who don't.
Garbage bias, garbage average, meaningless conclusions.
Could sleeping less be one of the reasons for men dying earlier than women?
I can confirm a tendency for headaches after getting more than eight hours of sleep, but then again the occasions when I sleep that long mostly are after having had too much to drink!
So I read your statement, and i guess that makes sense.
But what is the difference between human experimentation, and publishing censored data logs compiled into statistics?
You're definitely an idiot, no wonder you are stuck on night shift.
Outlier clearly means how much it impacts the stats not how important your job is or isnt.
Not shocked you're a self-described left leaning moron either.
did I miss someone commenting on the 'survey bias' of "those who can afford, and want to go to sleep with fitbits on ?" . My gut tells me that this would skew towards affluent, healthy, 25- 55 year olds where both the women and men work ...
Not sure how that'd adjust the results, but seems like that cross section is likely not representative ....
And, I didn't get an 'ah ha' or 'and therefore ....' out of this study ... or the comments on /.
What'd I miss ?
Waiver of consent is permitted in certain instances under 45 CFR 46 (though the waiver must be approved by an IRB). See section (d) from Cornell's helpful guidance here --> https://www.law.cornell.edu/cf...
-Your friendly neighborhood former IRB admin
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
My wife has one. One of her physicians told her that he wants to see how much she is sleeping, how many steps she is taking, etc.
But this is a battery-operated device. And it needs to be charged. So I have to wonder whether or not this study held for users who were charging their FitBits all night, rather than allowing it to record their sleep patterns. I don't see the actual study on the link, just an executive summary.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
If I don't get my 8 hours in, I'm an absolute unproductive disaster at work the next day. How do a *majority* of US Americans survive with less than 7 hours of rest each night? I just don't understand it. I know a lot of people are addicted to coffee, which I can't stand personally, but can that really explain it? Or does my body just need more sleep than most people? (Not so, according to the CDC and loads of other studies.)
I think one of the biggest problems in our society is people getting started in their day far too early, as if we are still farmers or something. There's absolutely no reason for an office-type job to begin before 9 AM, for example. Work just isn't that important. People need their sleep. Imagine how productive we could be!
Clearly men sleeping less is an important gender issue and I can't wait for all the social justice kids to start writing 8 articles a day about how women are clearly sexist and things need to change. After all, feminism and social justice isn't anti-male.
And since "Air Conditioning is Sexist":
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/wom...
Why can't sleep be?
There is nothing naughty about sex. In fact, it is our primary biological function.
That is incorrect. There is nothing wrong with having sex (EXCEPT when there is ... like if you have it with goats again), and even when it is not wrong, it is still naughty. Good luck learning English!
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Why do you believe that publishing collected data falls within the realm of "experimentation"?
It seems to me that this fails on that. It is not a experiment, so it doesn't need any of the stuff you mentioned.
While your post is informative, it appears to be off base.
Well, he also knows when you've been 'nice'.
Well, much akin to Mae West (who said "When I'm good I'm very good, but when I'm bad I'm better"), when I am naughty I am extra nice :-)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Because we are not all the same. The whole "you need 7+ hours" is *not* supported by data. And most definitely does not support the statement "Every person needs 7 hours sleep". I am fine with 6 hours sleep. And i mean fine. I can't really sleep more if i try.