Normal reaction time
For most adults, a normal reaction time on a simple visual test is between 200 and 300 milliseconds, with about 250 ms sitting in the middle. That is a browser figure. The same task measured on a laboratory rig came out at 231.0 ms across 1,469 adults, and a screen plus an input path adds 20–60 ms on top of whatever your nerves do.
Tap to start
3 rounds · random 1.5–4.5 second wait each time
Band · Finish 3 rounds to get a band
Three rounds is a quick check against the strip above, not the scored set. The full five-round test, with the comparison against the laboratory figure for your age group, is the reaction time test. Both run the same engine, and this short set keeps its own record in your browser — it never joins your five-round history.
What counts as a normal reaction time?
Start from the measured data rather than from an internet number. In Woods et al. (2015) — 1,469 adults aged 18–65, 120 trials each on a laboratory rig — the whole-sample mean was 231.0 ms and the spread of participants' own averages around it was 26.8 ms. That puts the middle two-thirds of those adults between roughly 204 and 258 ms.
A browser score is a different instrument: this site discloses 20–60 ms of screen refresh, touch sampling and input path, so that same middle two-thirds reads roughly 225 to 315 ms here. Which is why the honest answer to "what is normal" is a range, not a figure: 200–300 ms on a screen is ordinary for an adult, and one tap either side of it proves nothing about anyone.
| Set average | Reads as | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Under 250 ms | Fast | Ahead of where most adults land on a screen. Uncommon under 200 ms. |
| 250 – 300 ms | Normal | The middle of the distribution, once the device delay is left in. |
| Over 300 ms | Slow | Worth a retest after sleep, on the same device you always use. |
These are working bands for a browser task with one stimulus and one response. The five-band version with the typical profile for each, and the measured age table, are on average reaction time by age and device. Nothing here is a clinical cut-off.
Is 200 ms good, is 300 ms slow?
Four numbers people search, answered one line at a time. Every figure in them is either measured in the cited study or is the 20–60 ms browser delay this site discloses; none is invented for the sake of a tidy answer.
Is 200 ms a good reaction time?
Yes — on a browser that is fast. Take the 20–60 ms of screen and input path back off and you are around 140–180 ms on the laboratory scale, quicker than the 217.9 ms mean recorded for the fastest group measured (18–24). If you got there on a first attempt, retest before you believe it.
Is 100 ms reaction time possible?
Not as a first tap on a screen. In the same dataset the sensory-decision component of the task held steady at about 131 ms across every age group — that is the part before your finger begins to move — and the display path adds 20–60 ms on top. So a 100 ms reading is an anticipated tap, or a lucky tap against a frame that was painted early. Below about 150 ms on a browser, distrust the number instead of celebrating it; this test voids taps that land before green precisely because they are not reactions.
Is 280 milliseconds a good reaction time?
It is normal, which is a different thing and a better target. 280 ms here is roughly 240 ms once the device delay is removed — that is at the 231.0 ms whole-sample mean, and inside the ordinary range for every age group the study measured.
Is 300 ms a bad reaction time?
No. It is the upper edge of ordinary on a browser, and an expected figure for an older adult rather than a warning. A warm-up round, a 60 Hz screen, cold hands and a late night each account for more than that by themselves. Retest after sleep before treating a single 300 ms average as a finding. A sudden drop that neither sleep nor a screen explains — after a head injury, or alongside a new medication — is a matter for a clinician, not for a web test.
What is a normal reaction time for your age?
Age moves the number less than most people expect: about 0.55 ms per year, from 217.9 ms at 18–24 to 239.1 ms at 59–65 in the measured data — 21 ms across the whole of adult life. The full seven-group table is on the average reaction time page and is not repeated here, because two pages carrying the same table only end up competing with each other.
Two gaps are left open on purpose. The study stopped at 65 and did not measure anyone under 18, so this site prints no figure for either — reaction time keeps drifting upward after 65 faster than a straight line predicts, and a number copied from a neighbouring band would be a guess rather than a measurement.
How much of your number is your device?
More than your birthday does. Display refresh costs up to 17 ms on a 60 Hz screen and about 4 ms at 144 Hz; touch sampling and the operating system's input path add 10–40 ms; a Bluetooth controller or keyboard adds 10–30 ms more. That is 20–60 ms you cannot train away, against 21 ms separating the youngest and oldest age groups ever measured on this task.
The per-stage figures are tabulated on the device tax section of the average reaction time page. The practical consequence: compare your scores within one device and one time of day, and treat a precise millisecond difference between two people on different hardware as meaningless.
How to test properly
- 1Do a warm-up round, then discard it. First attempts usually run 20–40 ms slow while you work out what the task is asking.
- 2Use the same device and roughly the same time of day every time you compare two scores.
- 3Take an average of five rounds, not your single best tap. One lucky tap is noise; so is one tired one.
- 4Let the test reject the junk rounds for you — tapping before green, switching tab mid-wait and a stalled background timer all void a round rather than scoring it.
How every figure on this page is computed, including the bands and the browser delay, is written out on the methodology page.