Fitness Trackers Show How Many People Woke Up During California Quake
Most people near the quake were awakened by it. Most people near the quake were awakened by it. Jawbone
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Douglas Main is a journalist who lives in New York City and whose writing has appeared in the New York Times, Popular Science, Smithsonian, Nautilus, LiveScience,Discover Magazine, Popular Mechanics and elsewhere. He once worked in a lab studying drugs derived from the Amazon rainforest, before switching to writing about weird animals in the Amazon and many other topics, from science to health to the environment. When he isn’t exploring city or forest he likes to play basketball, read and go to concerts. He’s not fond of Oxford commas.
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Just how many people were awakened on Sunday morning by the 6.0 earthquake that struck northern California, the biggest to hit the Bay Area in 25 years? It would have been impossible to know in the past. But now we have a pretty firm number, at least for people wearing Jawbone UP bracelets, which people use to track their sleep and fitness.
According to the company, nearly 80 percent of people in the Napa and Berkeley areas woke up during the 3:20 a.m. PT earthquake. The farther people were from the shaking, obviously, the less likely they were to rouse. If it seems a little surprising that most were awake before 8 a.m. on Sunday, remember that those wearing the wristbands are probably a little bit more fitness-minded than the average person.
