Yeah my buddy is in Sweden and describes day lengths (both long and short) that make me recoil in horror.
Sleep deprivation in teenagers is hormone based, not screen based. Puberty fucks up your internal clock big time.
There are a couple of great studies on this. I know, it’s fun to blame tech and screens, but sadly, that’s a red herring.
The consensus seems to be that puberty shifts teen clocks to a more normal adult sleep time (10-11pm), but teens still require 2-3 more hours of sleep per night than adults do. Artificial light is as effective as natural light at regulating circadian rhythms. IOW, you can get the same effect by either turning on your lamp or having the sun rise early. Conversely, if you want to go to sleep, it helps to turn off the lights (and lit-up screens definitely count as artificial light and affect sleep patterns.)
Many people think the answer is for kids to just get to bed earlier, Owens noted. But it’s not that easy, she said, because biology has other plans.
Around puberty, the body’s natural sleep-wake cycle shifts, and it’s actually hard for teenagers to fall asleep earlier than 11 p.m.
“Teenagers’ bodies release melatonin later than (adults’) do,” Deray explained, referring to a hormone the brain secretes in the evening to induce drowsiness.
“The other issue,” Owens said, “is that teenagers’ sleep needs are greater than many people think. They need nine to nine-and-a-half hours.”
Teen Health Center: Information on Teen
It’s an older article, but as you can see, teens not only need more sleep than adults, but also, their natural sleep-wake cycle is behind most adults as well. Its natural makes them night owls. So, the early we make mornings start, the worse the affects are on kids. That’s why mornings should always start as late as possible. Now, this can be done by simple having schools start later for teens, but that still means I have to get up out of bed early. No thank you.
As for screen time, that’s another issue that has to be dealt with by everyone, not just kids. I personally put my phone in the kitchen at night so that it is out of sight and out of mind.
The only King novel I have read is the one about JFK’s assassination. Mainly because of the combination of time travel and the assassination, two subjects which fascinate me.
One more reason for me to continue my hate of snow. :)
Man all you sun-lovers are weird. If I could shift my days to only ever see the all-encompassing darkness of night, to gaze up into the void of distant stars, unblemished by the burning rays of our own, to never again walk within the light?
God I’d do that in a heartbeat.
om my god you’re so goth! can I ever be as goth as you?
Oh my. Your avatar doesn’t do you justice Armando!
I wonder if there’s some sort of “goth not goth” website where people post pictures of themselves in full goth makeup and also makeup free.
Two seconds after that gif was taken, she dropped dead of a backed-up bowel because there’s no room for intestines inside that waist circumference.
In case you guys were curious, that’s Vampira.
Did somebody say Vampira?
Wait… so Elvira is a knock-off Vampira? (I’ve only ever heard of Elvira, mistress of the dark.)
Beat me to it :)
Since the beginning of time, man has yearned to destroy the sun
The Misfits liked her, too.
My job search is going pretty well. So far I have been contacted by and progressed past the initial phone screening at 4 companies. I’m interviewing for software engineering positions for reference. To avoid naming any names I will simply number them in the order that they initially contacted me:
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Company 1 - Call with recruiter went really well followed by another great call with the hiring manager. Everything up to this point is mostly non-technical and behavior based questions. Instead of an in-person interview they wanted to do an interview over the phone with a shared computer screen. A little unorthodox for my region, but not unheard of. Turns out this isn’t just one interview, it’s 4 separate interviews with 4 completely different teams spread out over almost 5 hours. Lots of technical questions and 3 out of the 4 interviewers leaned very heavily on those programming brain teasers that are very popular in big silicon valley tech firms (Google, Facebook, etc.). Needless to say my brain is fried by the end and a couple of the interviewers were not impressed by the “less than ideal” solutions I presented. Usually these programming questions are less about finding mathematically optimal solutions and more about trying to demonstrate your thought process, but not for these guys it seems. No call back almost 2 weeks later and I’m not surprised nor upset. Pretty sure in their eyes I bombed this interview. My view is that there’s no way I want to work for them any more.
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Company 2 - Very promising call with the hiring manager leads to a very short take-home programming assignment (less than 2 hours of effort). This opportunity is the one I have been most excited about so far so I try to go above and beyond and make sure my code is clean, performs well, is well documented, and includes automated unit tests. They take almost a week and a half to evaluate my code and eventually tell me that I was rejected due to my choice of core data structure. I actually appreciate the rejection notice. Despite how much is stings to be rejected, I prefer that to simply being ghosted completely. But you know what I would appreciate more? The chance to discuss the merits of one data structure over another in an interview. Oh well. I guess that’s just how it goes
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Company 3 - Recruiter calls me and pretty much just reads the job posting back to me any time I ask a question. It’s a really big company so she probably didn’t know anything about the position, but that’s okay because she got me a phone call with the hiring manager. I talk with the manager a few days later for over an hour and things are great. A traditional in-person interview also went great earlier this week. This afternoon I got a call from the recruiter this saying they are going to extend me a formal offer early next week! While this one was the least exciting prospect for me initially, the interviews convinced me it could be a really great move. If they make a good offer I will likely accept.
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Company 4 - A phone interview with the hiring manager went well earlier today and they promised to schedule an in-person interview for early next week. I’m not super excited about the company due to some of the reviews online, but those are very location/team dependent and the position looks to be right for my specialty so I am happy to give them a fair shot. Besides it’s always good to have a backup prospect in case company 3 doesn’t come through with that offer
Congrats on what sounds like a pretty successful process! Super interesting for less-experienced developers like me to read, too, thanks for sharing :)