Things to do online at night
If you are awake late, you do not need to scroll. These are calm things to do online at night, from reading and listening to making something small, plus a short note on what to do if you simply cannot sleep.
Read something free, tune a live radio station, browse the small personal web, learn one small thing, work on a tiny project, or sit in a quiet online room with other people. If you are trying to sleep and cannot, the NHS suggests getting up after about 20 minutes and doing something quiet.
Some people stay up late by choice. They work best at night, or the evening is the first time they have to themselves. Others are awake and would rather not be. This list is for both. Most ideas are quiet, cost nothing and can be stopped at any point.
A word on sleep first, because it affects what you pick. If you want to be asleep and are not, skip to the section called "If you cannot sleep" near the end.
Read something that is free
Project Gutenberg is an online library of free ebooks. Its home page lists 79,627 titles and says there are no fees and no registration. Most are older works whose U.S. copyright has expired, so it suits classics, short stories and old science fiction. A short story is a good size for a night: you finish it in half an hour. Read for twenty minutes, then decide whether to keep going or stop.
The Internet Archive is another place to wander. Its site calls itself a digital library of free and borrowable texts, with movies and music as well.
Listen to live radio
Radio Garden lets you spin a globe and listen to live radio stations from other places. At two in the morning for you it may be midday somewhere else. It is a nice way to hear a language you do not speak.
Radio has one advantage over a playlist: you do not have to choose. Leave a station running in a tab while you read or work, and change it only when it stops suiting you. That removes the small decisions that eat the first half hour of a late evening.
If you want something steady instead, a lofi stream does the job. We explain what it is and where it comes from in what is lofi music, and the sound of a room full of people is covered in coffee shop ambience for working.
Read the small web
Search engines show you big sites. The small web is personal blogs and homepages. Three places to start:
- Kagi Small Web is a feed of recent posts from personal sites and blogs, sorted by topic. It shows posts from roughly the last seven days.
- Wiby is a search engine for the classic web, the older, simpler corner of the internet.
- Marginalia Search says it prioritizes non-commercial content and aims to help people find lost old websites.
Our piece on the old internet says more about why people like this part of the web.
Learn or make one small thing
Learn something small
Late evening is a good time for a small, finished thing. Pick a task that takes under an hour and has a visible result. A few examples:
- Learn one keyboard shortcut set in your editor and use it for the rest of the night.
- Read the documentation page of one tool you use every day and have never read.
- Draw one thing in pixel art, 16 by 16, and stop when it is done.
- Play a chess game on Lichess, a free, open-source chess site with no ads, according to its about page.
Small and finished beats big and abandoned. If you stay up late because you want to make things, this is the habit that matters. Write down on paper, before you start, what "done" looks like for tonight. When you reach it, stop or pick the next small thing on purpose. That keeps one late evening from turning into three hours of tweaking.
Build a tiny project
If you code, design or write, night is when many people get their best uninterrupted hours. Keep the scope small enough to finish in one or two sessions. A one-screen tool, a poster, a short scene, a single level. Put it online somewhere you can show it. Neocities, a free hosting service, describes itself as a social network for independent websites, and offers an in-browser HTML editor.
If you want to show what you made, our guide to getting first feedback on a side project covers where to ask.
Find company that is awake
A game with friends
If a friend is up too, a light game works better than a call with nothing to say. skribbl.io is a free drawing and guessing game where you can create a private room and share the invite link. Kosmi is a free browser site where you can watch videos and play small games together, with voice, video and chat built in, per its site. We compare more in multiplayer browser games to play with friends.
Keep the volume low if other people are asleep nearby, and agree an end time. A game that goes on until three in the morning is rarely the one you remember well the next day.
A quiet room with other people
Being awake at night can feel lonely. A text-based room where people are quietly doing their own things can help, because you are not expected to perform.
Other options with the same idea are Discord servers around a hobby, and body doubling sites where you work next to someone on video. See body doubling for how that works, and how to make friends online for more places.
If the loneliness is heavy and not just a quiet evening, talk to someone. In the US, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is available 24/7 by call, text or chat, and its site says conversations are free and confidential. It also supports people who are worried about someone else, and it is for emotional distress, not only for emergencies.
If you cannot sleep
If you are in bed and cannot sleep, picking an exciting game is the wrong move. The NHS page on how to fall asleep faster and sleep better gives this advice:
- If you are still awake after around 20 minutes, get up and sit somewhere comfortable. Try gentle yoga, reading a book or listening to quiet music, and go back to bed when you feel sleepy.
- Try not to use phones, tablets or computers for an hour before bed, because the blue light from screens can make it harder to fall asleep.
- Go to bed and get up at similar times each day, even on days off.
That is general advice for everyday sleeplessness. If you often cannot sleep, or it is affecting your days, see a doctor. I am not one, and this page cannot say what is wrong with your sleep.
If you do choose to stay up, a book, quiet music or a radio station fit the NHS suggestions better than a screen game. It is also fine to decide that tonight you are staying up and plan for it, instead of lying in bed angry about it.
A simple plan for a late evening
- Pick one thing to make or read. Write it on paper.
- Put on a stream or a radio station, at low volume.
- Work for an hour. Then take a break from the screen for ten minutes.
- Check in with a person, in a chat or a room, if you want company.
- Choose a stop time before you start.
The stop time is the part people skip. Late nights go on because nothing ends them.