chaos and noise

Do you like Science!™ ?

Do you think it would be useful if scientists had a better idea of how people sleep these days?

Do you like potentially winning nifty electronic gadgets?

There's a National Sleep Survey running at the moment, as part of the National Science Week activities. It's being run by ABC Science, and (like any research project...) needs as many people as possible.

There are three options on the site. The first is a survey about sleeping habits, and is the primary research instrument they're using. I like their running commentary about what each part of the survey is designed to look at, and the feedback they give at the end: "your survey is important to us because of your particular responses to X and Y" and (in my case) "you seem likely to suffer from the following sleep disorders." It's a nice way of handling things, and makes people feel like they've contributed something useful.

The second part is optional. It's a 7-day sleep diary, where you can track just how strange your sleeping habits are becoming... It takes a minute or two each day, and I've been filling in mine after getting to work each morning.

The third part isn't really part of the study at all, but it helps to get more people signed up :) It's a competition to win a $1000 voucher for an iPad or other electronic gadget, which you can leave next to the bed and use to cause further damage to your sleeping habits...