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By the time the snooze feature was added in the 1950s, the innards of alarm clocks had long been standardized. This meant that the teeth on the snooze gear had to mesh with the existing gear configuration, leaving engineers with a single choice: They could set the snooze for either a little more than nine minutes, or a little more than 10 minutes. But because reports indicated that 10 minutes was too long, allowing people to fall back into a “deep” sleep, clock makers decided on the nine-minute gear, believing people would wake up easier and happier after a shorter snooze. We’d tend to disagree with that logic, but, then, we must be in the lazy minority. Although today’s digital clocks can be programmed to have a snooze of any length, most stick with nine minutes because that’s what consumers expect.
Comments (12)
Comment
Mine is 4 minutes (digital) and it drives me crazy. If course, you would think that I would just set the alarms for later and get more real sleep rather than playing “snooze tag,” but nooooo, every morning I hit that button 5 or 6 times.
posted by Jack on 4-30-2008 at 8:30 am
The snooze timer on my phone’s alarm is five minutes and cannot be changed. I can’t stand it.
posted by Ira on 4-30-2008 at 8:37 am
I cannot hit the snooze buttone - I dont know what it is. I feel horrible if I even lay back down after my alarm goes off; I am groggy all day.
posted by Sarah on 4-30-2008 at 8:56 am
I bought a 10 dollar digital clock at KMart and the snooze alarm is set unchangeably to a “why bother?” 3 minutes.
posted by Bucko on 4-30-2008 at 8:59 am
My alarm clock is 7 minutes and I have not taken the time to figure out how to change it.
In college, I had a roommate who would purposely set his alarm approx. 1 hour ahead of when he needed to be up and would just hit snooze 10 times. He said made it easier to get up when he actually had to be up. That drove me crazy.
posted by Justin on 4-30-2008 at 10:13 am
My snooze button can be set for ten, twenty, or thirty minutes…Bliss! I adore the little machine, not only for this feature, but also the assortment of odd little white noises it can produce, all pleasant and soothing -except- the creepy heartbeat. That’s just plain weird.
posted by natlynn on 4-30-2008 at 10:31 am
The snooze alarm in my life works like this: my husband sets his alarm for at least an hour before he has to get up. The alarm goes off, wakes me up, I listen to him snoring for at least sixty seconds, kick him, kick him again (harder), he hits the snooze button and is snoring again by the next breath. I close my eyes and try to fall back to sleep for about 8-1/2 minutes, finally start to doze, then ….
posted by B on 4-30-2008 at 11:17 am
Mine is 6 minutes, but I wish I could break the habit of using it. I set it early because I know I’m going to walk across the room and hit the button at least 3 or 4 times. What I need is a really good wake-up song. Not so jolting that I’m scared awake, not so mellow that it can’t pull me from a dream.
posted by Mel on 4-30-2008 at 12:30 pm
I just discovered yesterday, actually, that my snooze button is nine minutes. I was really concerned, but now I feel so much better!
posted by Lisa on 4-30-2008 at 3:27 pm
I can’t actually use the snooze button. I manually reset my alarm for 5 or 10 or whatever minutes. This usually happens multiple times a morning. Why I trust a sleepy me more than the snooze button, I don’t know. But, I have never let me down, so I guess it works!
posted by kate on 4-30-2008 at 4:53 pm
Having had a 9 min snooze setting for years it is odd the things you can notice between deperately hitting the button and sliding back to sleep.
that the 9 times table;s results are a palindrome to the first 10 steps.
09,18,27,36,45,54,63,72,81,90
posted by Pol x on 5-1-2008 at 7:44 am
Pol x: That palindrome just made my day.
posted by steven on 5-2-2008 at 8:30 pm