Sleeping Time is an online application that gives the approximate sleeping schedule of Twitter users, basing its calculations on their periods of downtime from the social networking site. A quick survey of some notable tweeters reveals that Barack Obama's sleep schedule is 1am-8am, Oprah Winfrey's is 12am-7am, whilst the Dalai Lama's is 9pm-5am. Are these approximations at all accurate? There's really no way of knowing, and in any case It probably doesn't matter. What's intriguing about the site is not the information -- or conjecture -- it contains, but rather the assumption underpinning it, which is that social networking now pervades our lives to the extent that "being on Twitter" has become synonymous with "being awake". If we are not tweeting (or Facebooking, or GooglePlusing) then we are "asleep" socially, if not biologically. Also intriguing is the question of whether high-profile Twitter users are at all conscious of the story that their online behaviour tells about their (virtual) sleeping habits. Given that the online presence of eminent politicians and celebrities is presumably managed and scripted by teams of proxies, it would be interesting to know how much thought these ghostwriters give to scripting an appropriate virtual "sleep life" for their illustrious employers. To take the examples given above, Obama's sleeping hours seem broadly appropriate for America's commander-in-chief. As for the Dalai Lama, his early bedtime is very much in keeping with his status as the world's most famous ascetic -- but it's good to see that he enjoys a full eight hours like the rest of us.
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