A study using data from over a trillion observations of end-user Internet connections revealed that South Africans typically start sleeping at 21:52 and wake up at 06:11.
The study showed that South Africa’s average sleep time of 8 hours 20 minutes is less than most countries included in the research.
These findings were shared in the paper The Internet as Quantitative Social Science Platform: Insights from a Trillion Observations.
“With the large-scale penetration of the Internet, for the first time, humanity has become linked by a single, open communications platform,” said the researchers.
“We report insights arising from a unified Internet activity and location dataset of an unparalleled scope and accuracy, drawn from over a trillion observations of end-user Internet connections, with temporal resolution of just 15 minutes over 2006 to 2012.”
Using this data, the researchers produced the first global estimate of overnight sleep duration in 645 cities over seven years.
“We find statistically-significant variation between continental, national, and regional sleep durations – including some evidence of global sleep duration convergence.”
Sleeping patterns across the world
The table below provides an overview of the sleeping patterns of numerous countries involved in the study.