We all have our own daily rhythm of digital activity

A recent study has revealed that everyone has their own daily rhythm of digital activity.

Over the past decade, there has been a surge of scientific studies on the digital activity of people, such as making mobile calls, texting, e-mailing, and posting on social media. Because nearly all human behavior leaves a digital footprint, scientists can use such digital activity as a proxy to track human activity in general, for example to study differences between cultures or communities in sleep patterns, work schedules, and leisure activities.

Researchers from Finland and Denmark use a radically new approach to study digital rhythms. In contrast to previous studies that focused on general patterns across large numbers of people, they search for pronounced, long-term differences in rhythm between individuals. They show that people tend to have their personal rhythm of digital activity -- almost like a personal signature.

Each individual follows their own distinctive and persistent daily rhythm, says Talayeh Aledavood.

These personal rhythms could be detected in multiple datasets, and to a similar extent for e-mail, phone calls, and text messages.

In almost every case, the individual patterns differ strongly from the average behavior, for example by increased calling frequency during mornings, mid-days, or evenings, said Aledavood.

What drives these individual differences is not yet clear. Geographical and cultural differences clearly play a role. The researchers believe that there could also be an effect of physiology, for example caused by the difference between morning and evening persons, or by highly individual patterns of alertness during the daylight hours.

The study appears in the open-access journal Frontiers in Physics.