Reaction time test

TL;DR: click the box, wait for the red background to turn green and click right away. After five attempts you get your average and best reaction time in milliseconds and how many people react slower than you.

Use the mouse, tap the screen, or press Space or Enter. Everything runs in your browser.

How to use it

1. Click the blue box — it turns red.
2. Wait: after 1.5–4.5 seconds the background turns green.
3. Click, tap or press Space as fast as you can.
4. Repeat 5 times to get your average, best time and how you compare with others.

What is a normal reaction time

In the Woods et al. study (2015), 1,469 people took a simple reaction time test on a computer: 231 ms on average, mostly between 200 and 260 ms. Reaction time grows by about 0.5 ms per year of age, mostly because of slower hand movement rather than perception. Online tests show higher numbers: the Human Benchmark median is 273 ms, because screen, mouse and browser delays add up.

Why a browser result is slower than your “real” reaction

Hardware adds delay between the colour change and your click. A 60 Hz screen shows a new frame about 8 ms later on average, a 144 Hz screen about 3.5 ms. The monitor’s processing, a wireless mouse or a touchscreen add another 5–30 ms. That is why a gaming monitor with a wired mouse scores better than a laptop touchpad. Check your screen in the refresh rate test — after 5 attempts we show it here too.

How the test works

The signal time is taken from the high-resolution performance.now() timer in the frame where the colour changes, and the click time comes from the input event itself. So tab stutters and frame rate do not skew the result. Clicks faster than 100 ms count as guesses: no one reacts to a signal that fast.

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