I’m a proud night owl, says Flora Gill in the I newspaper. “The last time I went to bed before midnight I was seriously jetlagged.” And I’m not willing to give it up, despite a new study suggesting a 10pm bedtime leads to better heart health. The night is more fun and more elastic – no one ever does spontaneous karaoke after their morning jog. England, usually a buttoned-up country, becomes more sociable: you’re far more likely to make friends in a kebab shop at midnight than in a Pret at 9am.
Work is also easier. As the lights dim, the constant dings of WhatsApp and Instagram fade and there’s nothing to distract you. My favourite people are “the ones who would happily stay up late talking rubbish”. My boyfriend and I only met 10 years ago because we were the last two awake in our college at 2am. Life is pretty long already: “I’d much rather fill it with late-night memories than extend it and miss out.”
Memes make us less stressed
Looking at memes is good for you, according to the American Psychological Association. It’s incredible, says Logan Mahan in InsideHook: all those hours of mindlessly scrolling Instagram, laughing at “cute, silly and chaotic” memes, have actually “benefited your wellbeing”. A recent study found that respondents who looked at memes felt “calmer” and more “content”; those who viewed memes about the pandemic were more confident and less stressed about it. Social media might be “rotting our brains” and giving our children destructively low self-esteem, “but at least the memes are keeping us sane”.