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Witching hour online habits
By Teamspirit on Thursday, 20 October 2016
A study of the UK’s hourly internet habits released this week exposes some unexpected results, but ultimately confirms suspicions that we are online almost 24/7.
The general patterns of behaviour sound familiar: we check for news updates in the morning, listen to podcasts on our commutes, send e-mails and browse the internet at work then make online purchases and chat on social media in the evenings.
What may come as a surprise to some are the activities monitored through the early hours – with an average of 2,000 orders on Tesco.com between 3am and 4am, there is a pattern of retail sales in the middle of the night as people make last-minute panic purchases. Particularly common among parents of young children, it seems the nation is constantly turning to the internet for a solution – be that for boredom, hunger, or a distressed child.
Given that a typical household has more than seven internet-connected devices this is unsurprising, and with developments in wearable tech and artificial intelligence our dependence only seems set to strengthen.