WHAT IS YOUR MORNING MEDIA?

This is an updated story from the blog archives that was originally posted April 1, 2015.

Today I woke up at 5:55am to the sound of a cat vomiting up a fur ball. SPLAT… Now I’ve learned that I am not alone. I am one of the 4% of people who is awakened by pets. Puke comes with the territory.

Last year Larry Rosin and the good folks at Edison Research [link] released a fascinating report about how people use media to start their day. Edison’s Wake Me Up study tracks lifestyle and device usage during this important time of the day. Edison conducted a national online survey of 1,550 respondents age 18-54 in January 2015.

ARE YOU A MORNING PERSON?

If you don’t like mornings, you’ve got plenty of company. According the Edison, 16% of the survey respondents said they are not morning people. 

On the other hand, 40% of respondents said they are morning people and 44% said they aren’t morning people but have accepted that a morning wake up call is something they can live with.

HOW DID YOU WAKE UP THIS MORNING?

About half of the Wake Me Up respondents said they use an alarm. A third of the respondents like to awaken using their own internal clocks, a habit that sometimes causes the risk of over sleeping. 

When I was growing up, I was like the 14% of respondents who relied on someone else to wake me up. (My mother’s preferred method was to turn on the overhead light in my bedroom. This was a harsh way to start the day.)

IF YOU USE AN ALARM, WHAT TYPE IS IT?

More and more people – 50% of the respondents – were using their mobile devices for an alarm. The other 50% reported they used an old-school alarm clock. Of those folks, 35% use a traditional beep or buzzer; 12% wake up to the sound of a radio station.

 

AT WHAT TIME DID YOU WAKE UP THIS MORNING?

More than half of the Wake Me Up respondents said they are awake by 6:30am. This factoid surprised me a bit, perhaps because I like to start the day around 7:30am or so.

MEET MY 100% ANALOG ALARM CLOCKS

 Skylar is on the left and Scout is on the right. Skylar was the one puking this morning. No media was used during the clean up.

My typical morning routine, after getting out of bed, is a trip to my  home office via my laptop.  The first thing I do is check to see if this blog is still there and that today’s post is appearing. 

Next I check my mobile to see if there are any incoming messages.

While checking my messages I usually switch on the TV with the sound down and that is the way it stays for most of the day. Morning Joe is video wallpaper in my virtual newsroom.

Most mornings I listen on my headphones to NPR News on 91.1 KNOW or to music on 89.3 The Current. There are a few days, particularly in the summer, when I don't switch on any media at all. I love the Zen of the morning -- the calm of the silence, the sound of a breeze shaking leaves on the trees outside my window.

As I’ve gotten older, I like mornings more and more.  The world is so fresh and still then. I used to be a night owl.  Not that long ago, I thought a night was still early when it was midnight. Maybe I am older and wiser, or maybe just older.