Why the snooze button gives you 9 minutes.
Theories a-plenty
If you are like me, you will hit that snooze button probably once or twice, or four times every morning. But did you ever stop and think ‘Why does it give me 27 extra minutes and not 30’? Why is the interval between snoozes 9 minutes and not 10?
With a lot of things, the answer is not so simple. Because there is not one common theory that everyone can accept. But we can narrow it down to something that is highly likely the reason for the 9-minute snooze interval.
Clocks have been around in one shape or form for millennia and alarm clocks themselves have been around since before we even started counting years. Mechanical clocks are more of a recent invention. Around the 13th century, the mechanical clocks (Tower bells, etc) that we know started to appear.
The first alarm with a snooze function was the GE- Telechron Snooz Alarm (yes…) “the world’s most humane alarm clock” having a 9-minute Snooze function. ‘Drowse’ was later also a feature that competitors came up with but Snooze is what stuck.
So, why was it 9 minutes then? The main theory is that the clockworks of the day, the inner workings with all the gears and springs, all kinda followed a certain blueprint, and in order to add a snooze function, they didn’t want to mess too much with that blueprint. Alarm mechanics were complex, especially in such small formats, and messing around with existing gearings just was a no-no. So. In order to make it work, they added to the existing gears, but they could not get it close enough to 10 minutes to constitute a 10-minute snooze. The story goes they had 2 options. 9 minutes some seconds and 10 minutes and some more seconds. (I can’t remember the exact numbers) And they opted for the first one. 9 minutes plus change.
Another theory is purely physiological. Idea was, that it was best you don’t sleep longer than 9 minutes and would not fall into a deep sleep again. But that seems unlikely to me considering the understanding of sleep at that time. (Correct me if I’m wrong about the general knowledge of sleep in the 1940s)
Now then, why is it still 9 minutes? Well, who knows? I think if something is a certain way for long enough- it becomes the standard.
9 minutes is still to this day the default snooze time on most alarm clocks.
On my iPhone for instance you can snooze an alarm, and it will snooze for 9 minutes, and no way to change it with the stock Clock App.
And there you have it. If you have suggestions about what other everyday normal thing and its origins to write about next, let me know in the comments or better yet, sent me a message!
