Typical mouse hover position - left or right side of the screen?

Question

I'm curious if anyone knows what the typical mouse hover position is for a user browsing the web? I believe it's the right side of the screen, for proximity with scrollbars (and because that's where I notice that my mouse tends to hover) even though most users probably scroll with the mousewheel instead, but I'd like to know what others think.

For example, I liked this answer re. 'is the optimal placement of a scrollbar on the left or right side of the screen?' because it mentioned the "order of content consumption" being based on the language used (e.g. left to right for English), and because it referred to Fitt's Law, but it doesn't definitively say which is the more favored hover position.

Please include references or verifiable data (e.g. heat map studies), if possible.

Answer 1

The cursor is often used as a guide to support reading. The F-Pattern is the most common reading pattern when scanning a website, so it would be reasonable to infer that the cursor is often in line with that pattern. I know that I often do this, especially while reading on the web closely.

This Master's thesis study from Pompeu Fabra University (Spain) made a distinction between horizontal and vertical reading in cursor movement (slide 14)... it also depends on the task, e.g., searching vs. reading.