Who did you lose the most sleep over in 2019? Well, according to research by UK bed retailer Happy Beds, the likely answer was Jon Snow, the star of the hit series Game of Thrones.
Anxiety was a nationwide epidemic when it came to the end of the much-loved series, but analysis of over 30,000 insomnia-related tweets from the last 12 months and posts as parts of Happy Beds’ Social Insomnia campaign placed Jon Snow as the eighth most popular reason for Brits losing sleep.
Many tweets were concerned over the character’s fate, with the series developing a reputation for killing off its characters. While others spent many late-night hours discussing fan theories, others used it as a tool to express concern over their beloved black-haired Stark.
The finale, in particular, was a popular reason why many of us lost hours of kip with
#Gameofthronesfinale and #got8 being the 4th and 6th most common hashtags in sleepless-related tweets.
Jon Snow wasn’t alone when it came to the cast of Game of Thrones, with fan favourite Tormund Giantbane coming in as the 9th most popular mention and Bran Stark polishing off the top 10 in 10th place.
While police procedural Line of Duty also made the cut in sleepless-related mentions, Game of Thrones dominated mentions as the series enveloped the imaginations and stresses of a nation.
Nothing beats being hooked by a TV programme, but many of us had an issue with binge watching programmes on streaming platforms, with Netflix appearing in the results as the most popular television provider for insomniacs.
Entertainment as a whole was the most common theme that kept Brits up at night, with 40.1% of sleepless-related tweets focusing around it.
This research was generated by using the social listening service Linkfluence to mine Twitter and Facebook data for terms relating to sleeplessness and insomnia. 34,541 posts from the UK were analysed over a 12-month period from 13/9/2018 to 13/9/2019.
Joy Richards, Sleep Expert at Happy Beds, said: “At Happy Beds, we believe everyone needs and deserves a good night’s sleep. So, in a bid to help our customers get a better kip, we delved into social data to see what really keeps people up at night.
“Whilst we cannot do much to ease the nerves and anxiety of a TV obsession, Happy Beds can provide comfort and support to facilitate sleep.
“Maybe since the ending of Game of Thrones has (sadly) happened we can now sleep more, but there is always more great TV out there!”
To find out more about the ins-and-outs of what kept us awake at night over the last year, then check out the Happy Beds social insomnia research directly. It even contains a few tips to help you sleep, even if you’re stuck in TV-obsession land.
