Going to sleep before midnight on New Year’s Eve can feel decidedly lame. After all, it’s a holiday, that revolves around counting down to that very specific moment.
How late the world stays up on New Year’s, in one map
(Shutterstock)
But if all you want to ring in 2016 is a 10:30 p.m. bedtime, sleep soundly knowing you’re not alone: data from fitness tracker company Jawbone suggests that nearly a third of its American users are asleep before the clock strikes midnight.
Americans are, in fact, worse than most other countries at making it up until the ball drops. Jawbone is the company that manufacturers the Up wristbands, which track (among other thing) sleep patterns. While this isn’t a scientific sample of each country’s New Year’s habits, it does provide a bit of insight into who stays up late — and who turns down for a decent night’s sleep. You can see their results in this map:
And here are three key insights about New Year’s Eve that Jawbone pulled out of their data.
1. America does terribly at staying up until midnight
Only 71.2 percent of Jawbone Up wearers in the United State were up at 12 a.m. for New Years in 2014. And Americans are worse at staying up until midnight than Russians, Mexicans, Indians, and citizens of pretty much all European countries. No American city cracks the top 10 in Jawbone’s list of latest average bedtime on New Year’s:
(Jawbone)
When you stretch the list out to 20 cities, one New York City borough does make the list (Congrats, Queens!).
Even Canada just barely beats us at staying up to ring in the new year. There, 79.4 percent of Jawbone wearers were up at midnight for the start of 2014. That’s right: mild-mannered Canadians are off in a frozen tundra celebrating harder than us!
2. Pasadena, CA goes to bed especially early
While the Up data generally looks at sleep patterns of entire countries, they also drilled down on a handful of American cities. And one thing they notice is that residents of Pasedena, CA go to sleep especially early. Last year, 47.9 percent were already in bed by midnight. This likely reflects the fact that Pasadena residents don’t have much time New Year’s Day to nurse hangovers: the annual Rose Parade starts bright and early at 8 a.m. each year.
3. China goes to sleep early — but has a different New Year’s
One thing that jumps out in the Jawbone data is that Chinese users go to bed relatively early on New Year’s — earlier than Americans, who we’ve already learned aren’t exactly party animals.
This seems to owe at least in part to the fact that they stay up later for the lunar Chinese New Year’s, which happens in late January or early February:
(Jawbone)
In summary, you needn’t feel lame going to bed early on New Year’s Eve — lots of your fellow Americans are (and even some Canadians) are doing it too.
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