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What sort of events does "last seen" refer to? For example, how is it that a question was "asked 13 minutes ago" while the asker was "last seen 27 minutes ago"? What happened 27 minutes ago to reset the "last seen" clock? Why does it not reset when a user posts a question or answer?

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To blatantly steal a post from @Shog9 over on Meta.SE...

The "last seen" date is only updated every n minutes, where n was 15 [after] the last time I bothered to check.

So when this time is recorded, it won't be updated again for at least another 15 minutes, no matter how many times the user accesses the site during this period.

If I post a question 11 minutes after my last access is recorded, stick around for another 3 minutes hitting Ctrl+R as fast as I can, and then stomp off in disgust... You'll see my profile looking similar to what you observed here.

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    Is this info still up to date? I very often see "last seen" counts in the seconds rather than minutes, when a user is currently active on the site - too often for it to be just coincidence that I happened to look at their profile just after the 15-minute-ly update.
    – Rand al'Thor Mod
    Oct 17, 2017 at 9:43
  • I searched to see if I could find anything more recent, but couldn't find anything. So with an absence of proof I'll have to conclude that this is still up to date.
    – Mithical
    Oct 17, 2017 at 9:45
  • @Randal'Thor i think it does... checking my own profile and knowing I have done things to be "seen" in the past minute... it still says last seen "9 minutes ago".
    – Skooba
    Oct 20, 2017 at 17:09

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