# How are the hours-read statistics calculated? **URL:** \ **Category:** Meta Discussion\ **Tags:** question\ **Created:** [January 3, 2021, 6:51pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-are-the-hours-read-statistics-calculated/52790 "2021-01-03T18:51:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1

**Author:** ![CameronBieganek](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/cameronbieganek/32/6915_2.png) [@CameronBieganek](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/CameronBieganek)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2021, 6:51pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-are-the-hours-read-statistics-calculated/52790/1 "2021-01-03T18:51:24Z")

Does anyone know how the hours-read statistics on Discourse are calculated? For example, my profile says > Read 9d (1d recently) In other words, over what time periods are those two numbers measured? It seems I’ve been spending too much time on Discourse. 😂 ---

**Author:** ![Sukera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@Sukera](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Sukera)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2021, 6:54pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-are-the-hours-read-statistics-calculated/52790/2 "2021-01-03T18:54:53Z")

Good question. I know I spend less time on here than I used to, yet it still says I’ve spent 20h recently 🤔 > 17d read time, 20h recent read time ---

**Author:** ![CameronBieganek](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/cameronbieganek/32/6915_2.png) [@CameronBieganek](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/CameronBieganek)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2021, 6:57pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-are-the-hours-read-statistics-calculated/52790/3 "2021-01-03T18:57:46Z")

Hmmm, it looks kind of like the first number is an estimate of total read time since a user has joined a forum. You joined in August of 2018 and I joined in January of 2019, which seems to partly explain the difference in the first number. ---

**Author:** ![lmiq](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/lmiq/32/18314_2.png) [@lmiq](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/lmiq)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2021, 10:04pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-are-the-hours-read-statistics-calculated/52790/4 "2021-01-03T22:04:19Z")

> [@CameronBieganek](#): > > It seems I’ve been spending too much time on Discourse. Better that than TikTok (jokes apart, it is actually nice to spend the social media time in a forum in which one actually learns something) ---

**Author:** ![Tamas\_Papp](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/tamas_papp/32/25949_2.png) [@Tamas\_Papp](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Tamas_Papp)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2021, 1:06pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-are-the-hours-read-statistics-calculated/52790/5 "2021-01-04T13:06:13Z")

> [@CameronBieganek](#): > > It seems I’ve been spending too much time on Discourse. Possibly, but I am not sure it can tell if you are actually reading the page, or just have it open in the browser window and you are doing something else. Personally, I tend to open all new/unread posts in the morning, then read them whenever I happen to have time. ---

**Author:** ![mbauman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mbauman/32/31082_2.png) [@mbauman](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mbauman)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2021, 4:22pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-are-the-hours-read-statistics-calculated/52790/6 "2021-01-04T16:22:44Z")

My assumption is that it’s the sum of “read time” estimates for each post you’ve spent enough time on screen for it to be marked as read. ---

**Author:** ![CameronBieganek](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/cameronbieganek/32/6915_2.png) [@CameronBieganek](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/CameronBieganek)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2021, 4:28pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-are-the-hours-read-statistics-calculated/52790/7 "2021-01-04T16:28:05Z")

Yeah, there are some details about how they estimate read time here: > **[How does post tracking work in Discourse](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-does-post-tracking-work-in-discourse/115790)** > > Discourse tracks read time for every post users see on the screen. This system has evolved over the years and I find I often need to refer back to the code to figure out how this works and why it exists. This post covers the painful technical... However, my main question is what period of calendar time is considered when calculating the “recent read time”. For example, my “recent read time” is 24 hours. Does that mean I’ve been reading 24 hours per day, or per week, or per 6 months, or per year? ---

**Author:** ![mbauman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mbauman/32/31082_2.png) [@mbauman](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mbauman)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2021, 4:30pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-are-the-hours-read-statistics-calculated/52790/8 "2021-01-04T16:30:50Z")

Oh interesting. It’s more complicated than I had assumed. Here’s the answer to what’s recent: > **[Read time vs Recent read time](https://meta.discourse.org/t/read-time-vs-recent-read-time/110939/2)** > > Recent read time is within the last 60 days, read time is since the creation of your account. ---

**Author:** ![CameronBieganek](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/cameronbieganek/32/6915_2.png) [@CameronBieganek](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/CameronBieganek)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2021, 4:34pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-are-the-hours-read-statistics-calculated/52790/9 "2021-01-04T16:34:02Z")

Oh, nice! Thanks for digging that up. I’ll quote the answer in that thread for completeness: > Recent read time is within the last 60 days, read time is since the creation of your account.