People who stay up later have higher IQs

[Forbes]

Night owls are smarter than other people, and now we may know why. The modern world contains many features our slow-to-evolve brains still find unfamiliar—cars, TVs, hot dogs on a stick. But the world has always thrown new stuff at us, and brighter humans may adapt more ably.

Satoshi Kanazawa, a psychologist at The London School of Economics and Political Science, argues that, while we have specialized mental modules for navigation, social interaction, and other age-old tasks, general intelligence is its own module handling only evolutionarily novel circumstances. And he has data showing that people with higher IQs are more likely to have values and preferences that just didn't make sense for our ancestors to embrace. One of those is staying up late.

A previous study found that evening people are smarter than morning people. In a new paper, Kanazawa replicates the finding and provides a theoretical grounding. Because the nocturnal lifestyle allowed by electricity didn't exist 10,000 years ago, we must now rely on general intelligence to override our early-to-bed instincts. So those with more of it stay up later. How much later?

Intelligence: The Evolution of Night Owls | Psychology Today

First thing that came to mind was my not so bright friend who sleeps between 7 and 8 pm lol. Do you agree on this study?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Rem]

Wow you learn something new everyday. I always thought "Early to bed, early rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.."

:urock2:

 

[Icy]

Honestly, I feel studies like this are just a waste of time. It's just another attempt to find something to justify a unique behavior of someone rather than something worthwhile. We're all too scared to just be who we are, and we wait until it's justified by research.

There are also studies which justify waking up early and the benefits of that. Sorry I can't find it at the moment.

This type of research bothers me, because it's just to make people stop worrying about something different about them.

 

[FDJustin]

I agree with that saying, Rem.

As someone who's always stayed up very late, I can safely say it does contribute to making me smarter than I would have been otherwise. After all, it's late, few people are awake, and the world is diurnal. Plenty of time to read, to think, to focus on more mental based activities.

But a normal diurnal way of life easily leads to being more healthy. It's easier to be active during the day, and sunlight is good for you.

Wealth... Hmm. I suppose traditionally that was very true. You network during the day, you sell during the day, you promote during the day. That's been shifting to an any-time scenario with TV and Internet.

And wisdom is how well you understand and interact with the world around you. People who are more focused on day-time activities are probably more likely to get experience in this respect.

... My view comes from staying up much later, and getting up much later than the charts show. So it could be that those people who "only" stay up until 1:40 on the weekends don't have as much of a lifestyle shift as I suggest.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Icy]

As someone who's always stayed up very late, I can safely say it does contribute to making me smarter than I would have been otherwise. After all, it's late, few people are awake, and the world is diurnal. Plenty of time to read, to think, to focus on more mental based activities.

It's funny, training for a physical improvement (working out) it's the same idea of "few people are up", but it's (typically) based on waking up before everyone. On the flip side for mental improvement it seems to be an idea of "few people are up", but rather in association with staying up late. I just thought it was kind of a funny difference.

Obviously there are exceptions, but it's just something I've noticed being involved in both types of communities for a while. Definitely a crappy place to be stuck in because I'm actively involved in both, and I like waking up early, and being up late.

 

[FDJustin]

I love when that kind of thing happens, Icy. It's just really neat when the same mentality is applied in different ways.

From what I hear though, exercising before bed hurts your quality of sleep, since your body is worked up and ready to keep going.

But... If you're tired, you don't learn as well. Then again, sometimes learning can be very mentally stimulating. Which may explain why some of these people stay up later. If what you're learning is entertaining to you, it gives you energy and it takes much longer for your mental fatigue to match the physical.

 

[Russ H]

I like Gary Vaynerchuk's perspective on this:

"How do you start a successful online business? If you have a family, you don't quit your day job. Work there from 8 to 5. Come home and spend some quality time w/the kids.

And from 8 or 9 pm to 2 am, do your business. Do it on weekends, too. That's 5 hours a day, 5-7 days a week. 25-35 hours every week. You can do a lot of damage with that kind of time investment."

-Russ H.

YouTube - Web 2.0 Expo NY: Gary Vaynerchuk (Wine Library), Building Personal Brand Within the Social Media Landscape

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[moop]

If this is true, I must have an iq of 180+ :smx1:

 

[James Fake]

When I work on web stuff, I am on fire from 10pm to 5am..

 

[Anon3587x]

Something about being tired unlocks a different sort of beast in me.

But if I have had a long day there is no doubt about it I will go to bed early and wake up early because of it. Does this make me any less intelligent ? no of course not...

It just means I had a long day and want to sleep. . .

You know what I take back what I just said.

I do somewhat agree with this now I think about it.

Not everybody is able to sit by them self as most people do at night and work on something.
The Majority of the earth are known as extroverts, they need social interaction to thrive and do things. They usally do most there thinking as they talk/read or have been told.

They are also known as the less intelligent people in most cases, but definetly not stupid by any means.

Then you have the introverts who thrive on being alone because being around others drains them. They think in thought most the time and find comfort in solitude. Just about anyone who you would consider a genius is a introvert.

Imagine the extroverts as soldiers and the introverts as generals to a sense.

Many CEOs are considered Introverts, to many for it to be considered coincidence .

Extroverts usually would not be able to stay up through out the night working on a project (they would not like the loneliness, they would save all there energy for the day where they could interact.


But I guess it all comes down to how long of a day you had in which determines the hours of the night you stay up to.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Tony T]

Interesting. And to think I get yelled at all the time for staying up too late

 

[Guest3722A]

I don't know if I would consider myself to have a high IQ but I do know that my life is so completely consumed with the current stages of my business plan that it's rare for me to sleep longer than 5 hours and many times I'm up until 2 or 3 researching.

 

[biophase]

In the old days (1990's) staying up late was considered wasting time even for work. You really could not get much work done at 12am. Think about it, you could not call any coworkers. You couldn't research anything. All you could really do was maybe write a report or read whatever book you had. Next time you are working late at night, imagine if all you had was your computer and no internet access. How much work could you get done?

Now, we can type long emails and fire them off. We can do research online and have access to all of your company's intranet. We can work on our businesses because so much of it is computer based.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Anon3587x]

I think the point of that research (to an extent) was to prove that someone who was willing and able to spend all those late night hours alone reading at night (before the internet) indeed was smarter then your average chap.

 

[Russ H]

In the old days (1990's) staying up late was considered wasting time even for work. You really could not get much work done at 12am. Think about it, you could not call any coworkers. You couldn't research anything. All you could really do was maybe write a report or read whatever book you had. Next time you are working late at night, imagine if all you had was your computer and no internet access. How much work could you get done?

Now, we can type long emails and fire them off. We can do research online and have access to all of your company's intranet. We can work on our businesses because so much of it is computer based.

The 90s?

Lots of late nighters, when I really got into it.

I did my best money between 10 pm and 2 am. Quiet time when it was just me and my mac, doing 3D design work. I lost sense of time-- it was a kind of reverie for me.

I also worked w/my Aussie clients. And when I was abroad, did night calls to coincide w/US time.

Lots of other designers did awesome work during the wee hours.

Before computers, architects and artists all over the world crunched during early am sessions.

Thomas Edison worked around the clock-- just survived on cat naps since he had so many amazing things going on.

I'm guessing field generals also did some of their best strategy work in the wee hours. But this is just a guess (I haven't read any military bios on this).

No question that the internet and global interconnectivity have made it possible to do MORE work, around the clock.

But with that capability comes a need to regulate-- we could work 24/7-- but why? Yes, hard work (and lots of it) can stack the deck in your favor.

But all the more reason to figure out ways of working smarter, more efficiently.

-Russ H.

 

[Darkside]

Here's an interesting article which discusses this topic.

Why Morning People Rule the World

I'm a night owl but I want to change to become a morning person because most business gets done during the day. If you need to see a client, most likely they will be off work at 5pm so it wouldn't do much good to show up at their business at 11pm would it? That's why morning people succeed more. We'd still be just as smart if we changed our habits to become morning people rather than night people; after all your IQ doesn't change based on what time you wake up.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Anon3587x]

Here's an interesting article which discusses this topic.

Why Morning People Rule the World

I'm a night owl but I want to change to become a morning person because most business gets done during the day. If you need to see a client, most likely they will be off work at 5pm so it wouldn't do much good to show up at their business at 11pm would it? That's why morning people succeed more. We'd still be just as smart if we changed our habits to become morning people rather than night people; after all your IQ doesn't change based on what time you wake up.

Here is what it said about early morning people.

" "[T]hey tend to get better grades in school, which gets them into better colleges, which then leads to better job opportunities."
"But if morning people are ruling the world – winning the promotions and the top decision-making jobs – will night people ever get any concessions?"

Yeah there is a term for that, SLOWLANE

Here is what it said about night owls.

"(Not that evening people are life's losers: They're smarter and more creative, and have a better sense of humor, other studies have shown.)"

Things are speeding up!

Night owls run shit so they do not have to wake up at the crack of dawn if they do not want to. Being self employed has its perks.