The evidence in favour of daylight saving is somewhat flimsy

October 13, 2024 12:04 PM

While scanning these files I came to realise that timezones were even more complicated than I had originally understood, with the rules in a constant state of flux. I was intrigued to see what patterns might emerge if I could visualise this dataset in its entirety ... from Exploring 120 years of timezones [Scott Logic, 2021]
posted by chavenet (41 comments total)

Hmmm. If you live on the leading edge of a time zone, as those on the northeast coast of the US do, daylight savings makes plenty of sense. Yeah, we could just get up and go to work an hour earlier, but as a practical matter that's just not going to happen. Me? I'm happy that the sun isn't coming up at 4:30 in the morning during the summer months.
posted by slkinsey at 12:32 PM on October 13 [4 favorites]

Similarly, here in the Scottish Highlands, it's pretty convenient not to have the sun set around 4pm in the dead of winter. The UK (by which I mean the south of England, natch) this comes up every single year. Perhaps, after independence, Englandshire can scrap it - they'd only be mildly inconveniencing the north, which doesn't usually seem to bother them otherwise.
posted by deeker at 1:32 PM on October 13 [5 favorites]

I never curse Daylight Savings when it gets lifted (early November hereabouts) and suddenly I get an extra hour's sleep when I need it most. I can entirely see the point of it in June around the Solstice when day is breaking at roughly 4:30 AM (early enough, thank you).

Time is just an abstract anyway -- we should feel free to muck around with it every now and then.
posted by philip-random at 1:43 PM on October 13 [3 favorites]

Since the beginning of time, man has yearned to destroy the sun.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 1:52 PM on October 13 [22 favorites]

In am era when all the working hours of all businesses and most people are available on the Internet, its original use for long-distance business coordination seems moot. Bring back solar noon!
posted by McBearclaw at 1:55 PM on October 13 [7 favorites]

I favor just shifting clock ahead by an hour every six months. Occasionally it will work out.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:18 PM on October 13 [10 favorites]

the darkest timeline-
posted by HearHere at 2:49 PM on October 13 [6 favorites]

Whenever DST changes, I'm glad I'm retired and no longer have to deal with the software consequences.
posted by MtDewd at 3:06 PM on October 13 [2 favorites]

deeker, I'm not sure what effect abolishing DST would have on "the dead of winter". BST runs from the end of March to the end of October, affecting no Winter months. If it were really important to change the times of sunrises and sunsets, you'd assume we'd do this in the winter (when there are only a few hours' sunlight) rather than in the summer (when there are only a few hours' of darkness).
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 3:19 PM on October 13 [2 favorites]

Keep DST all year round! Oh my gods I hate when we have to switch it back in November and suddenly it's already getting dark at 1800. I live in the far southwestern part of my time zone, and every time I visit the Northeast in the Standard Time months, it's dark out by 1630 and I'm practically suicidal. I totally LIKE the dark mornings: it's peaceful and soothing.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 3:27 PM on October 13 [7 favorites]

*Double* Daylight Savings time, I say. Either by breaking the year up into 4 sections and ramping up to +2/-2; or just jumping right to +2/-2. You're already not going to get people to agree on which one's better because it's dependent on where people live relative to their time zone, so let's shake loose this "But there's a time it's supposed to be and it's the *wrong one*" inertia.

"But why not just have businesses & schools change their hours to suit the season?" Which is easier to change, all the clocks or societal expectations & norms? Hint: We've been a lot more successful at one of them.
posted by CrystalDave at 3:38 PM on October 13 [1 favorite]

The flow of time is relative to the speed of the object being measured. That's to say that here on Earth, it's almost the same time everywhere, but the rest of the universe keeps a whole boatload of different clocks. Time flows at different rates, like eddies swirling along the bank of a fast-moving stream. I'm sure nobody's ever calculated the actual net speed of our planet after accounting for the various rotational and orbital speeds, the rotational speed of our galaxy, and the galaxy's speed as it hurtles helter-skelter toward the Virgo Supercluster.

So, here on Earth, it's safe to say it's the same time everywhere. I worked in a facility that ran on UTC (Zulu Time) for several years. At the beginning of each 8-hour shift, we celebrated our clock with one of the Zulu transmitters; our receiver compensated for the distance from the emitter to our antenna and corrected the clock to 9 zeros. We put this time code on every recording we made. The boys back at the Puzzle Palace used this code as an early version of the GPS we all now enjoy on our smartphones. Because we used analog tapes, the WoW factor could be ignored since the distortion affected both the timestamp and the data.

I liked living on Zulu time. Daylight Savings Time is a cosmic joke. Time zones should be banished to antiquity for the same reason we no longer see hand-powered butter churns and brass spitoons.

Let common sense prevail! In modern times, a broken clock is no longer right twice daily—it's never right because the digits don't light up. Ever. It's high time we all recognized that a 24-hour clock reflects reality, not the stupid 12-hour mess we now struggle with. Not only do we put the cart before the horse, we put the damned horse in the cart.

it's time to fight for rational time keeping. I urge you all to write to your appropriate movers and shakers. Go Zulu Time!
posted by mule98J at 4:08 PM on October 13 [10 favorites]

I don't care whether it's DST or standard time. I just want them to stop changing the damn clocks. It not only does nothing useful causes death and injury. And on a personal note it ruins my sleep for about two weeks, even the supposedly "good" shift that supposedly gives you an extra hour of sleep.

Way back towards the beginning of this year for a few brief glorious moments it looked like the US government was going to do the right thing and end the practice and then it just.... never happened. And so we're continuing to do the stupid thing. No one likes it. No one wants it. And yet, somehow, we keep doing it.
posted by sotonohito at 4:11 PM on October 13 [15 favorites]

Either:

1. Keep DST Year 'Round
2. Provide workers enough flexibility they can shift their schedule to take advantage of the sun outside, or not, as they see fit.

Since #2 will never happen in the US, DST FOR LIFE!!!
posted by MrGuilt at 4:21 PM on October 13 [4 favorites]

For me the evidence in favor is 100% - I trade an hour of daylight in the morning for an hour of daylight in the evening, works 100% every time, and I of course prefer that extra hour in the evening. As for which edge of the time zone you sit, I grew up on the western edge and thought that having daylight until 10pm was pretty cool. I do admit that being retired from the 9-6 rat race I care a whole lot less about this these days. I always thought all the arguments about working efficiency, energy efficiency, etc. were just excuses to justify the pleasure getting some sunlight after the workday was over.
posted by caddis at 4:48 PM on October 13 [2 favorites]

If you live on the leading edge of a time zone, as those on the northeast coast of the US do, daylight savings makes plenty of sense.

In Atlanta, at the far west of the Eastern Time Zone, it means we are stuck with the sun not rising until after 8 am for months. Our equinox daylight is 7:30 am to 7:30 pm. If you are a person who gets to set your own schedule or who doesn't have to be at work until 9, I guess that's fine. But for those of us who teach 8 am classes, and thus must be at work well before 8, it is months of driving to work in soul crushingly dark mornings punctuated by being blinded by ridiculously bright fucking headlights with no end in sight. I'm so damn excited for the end of DST in a few weeks and already dreading the spring time change.
posted by hydropsyche at 5:09 PM on October 13 [7 favorites]

The obvious answer is too work fewer hours period in the darker months. Switch to a six-hour workday or even four. It's dark, it's colder, it's a dumb time to work, and that's why we all get depressed and want to sleep through it.
posted by emjaybee at 5:19 PM on October 13 [11 favorites]

> "Similarly, here in the Scottish Highlands, it's pretty convenient not to have the sun set around 4pm in the dead of winter."

Clocks get set *back" for the winter. You're making an argument for keeping DST all year, not getting rid of it.

Which I'd be fine with.
posted by kyrademon at 5:22 PM on October 13 [2 favorites]

Time zones should be banished to antiquity for the same reason we no longer see hand-powered butter churns and brass spitoons.

I agree. The sun should come up at 06:00:00 every day every place and let the chips fall where they may.
posted by flabdablet at 5:30 PM on October 13 [9 favorites]

The American Medical Association and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine have both endorsed permanent standard time. That would be my preference as well, but I will take any end to the biannual sleep disorder jubilee that is our current system (in my jurisdiction - I realize others already avoid this fiasco).
posted by the primroses were over at 5:32 PM on October 13 [11 favorites]

Here in Arizona the evidence against Daylight Savings Time is overwhelming. It’s hot enough at 8:30 pm in the summer, we sure as hell don’t need the sun still out.
posted by azpenguin at 5:51 PM on October 13 [3 favorites]

The onset of Australian Eastern Daylight Time this year didn't fuck me over as much as it has always done in previous years because (a) I am retired now so my schedule is my own (b) my body clock, always kind of busted (it wants to run about a 25 hour cycle if left to its own devices; I might be Martian) is getting progressively more busted now that I have the freedom to sleep when I'm sleepy and wake when I wake and (c) stuff I needed to get done had already been scrambling my sleep times in the two weeks leading up to the onset of AEDT. Bedtime had been varying by as much as ±5 hours per day and the missing hour just disappeared under the noise floor.

This is the first year I can remember in which I have felt no negative effects at all from everybody around me inexplicably agreeing to do everything an hour earlier. The failure of the customary unpleasantness to arrive in my life this year has actually been extraordinarily pleasant.

Those of you still suffering from this lunacy have my heartfelt sympathy.
posted by flabdablet at 5:52 PM on October 13 [3 favorites]

so we're continuing to do the stupid thing. No one likes it. No one wants it. And yet, somehow, we keep doing it.

Well, that's the American way, isn't it?
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:44 PM on October 13 [2 favorites]

I'm in camp "I don't care if you leave DST on or off, just pick one and stop playing with the switch".
posted by Dysk at 7:02 PM on October 13 [6 favorites]

I would prefer to get rid of DST rather than Standard Time, because in the winter months my internal clock much better matches the wake-up time imposed by my job. During DST, my internal clock is just settling in for another round of deep sleep right around the time the alarm goes off, and after 30-odd years in the workforce I've never been able to acclimate to it. If we switched to all-DST all the time, I'd have to lobby my employer to let me start the day at 9am instead of 8am.
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:03 PM on October 13 [5 favorites]

The last time the US switched to year-round DST in 1973, it proved to be a failure and was abandoned after just one year.
posted by fairmettle at 8:27 PM on October 13 [2 favorites]

Me falling back: Haha fuck yeah!!! Yes!!

Me springing forward: Well this fucking sucks. What the fuck.
posted by Reyturner at 9:06 PM on October 13 [5 favorites]

I am not reading this. I live north of the 45th parallel in Pacific time and can not stand the time shift to so-called standard time. Sunrise is after eight, sunset is about 4:30. I want to shift to Mountain Time, aka, permanent DST.
posted by drfu at 10:26 PM on October 13 [2 favorites]

In any discussion of DST changes it's worth re-reading Rizvi's falsehoods programmers believe about time zones as well as qntm's generic checklist:

You advocate a
( ) solar ( ) lunar ( ) atomic
approach to calendar reform. Your idea will not work. Here is why...

( ) "7am" is a social construct
( ) social constructs are actually very important
( ) "daylight saving" doesn't
...
( ) the Earth is not, in fact, a cube
...

Specifically, your plan fails to account for:
( ) humans
( ) rational hatred for arbitrary change
(x) the history of calendar reform is insanely complicated and no amount of further calendar reform can make it simpler

posted by autopilot at 12:27 AM on October 14 [2 favorites]

it's not just the "daylight saving" or the "standard" or whatever prefix that's the problem, it's time itself that is the problem.
posted by busted_crayons at 1:22 AM on October 14 [1 favorite]

Saving. Saving. Daylight Saving Time. The kind of time that saves daylight. What would “Daylight Savings” even mean? Are you picturing a stately Greek Revival building into which we deposit an hour of daylight each evening for use the next morning – the Daylight Savings Bank? Oh no you are aren’t you. There’s no bank! We’re just saving daylight. Do you need a hyphen? Here: Daylight-Saving Time.
posted by nicwolff at 3:51 AM on October 14 [2 favorites]

In Atlanta, at the far west of the Eastern Time Zone, it means we are stuck with the sun not rising until after 8 am for months. Our equinox daylight is 7:30 am to 7:30 pm. If you are a person who gets to set your own schedule or who doesn't have to be at work until 9, I guess that's fine. But for those of us who teach 8 am classes, and thus must be at work well before 8, it is months of driving to work in soul crushingly dark mornings punctuated by being blinded by ridiculously bright fucking headlights with no end in sight. I'm so damn excited for the end of DST in a few weeks and already dreading the spring time change.

Greetings, fellow ATLien. I concur with your assessment of the situation.

Atlanta really should be in the Central Time Zone, but was moved to Eastern many years ago so the trains would be on the same schedule as the coastal ports. CAPITALISM!
posted by Fleebnork at 4:55 AM on October 14 [3 favorites]

Daylight Saving Time. The kind of time that saves daylight. What would “Daylight Savings” even mean?

See, the problem is that "saving daylight" through time zone shenanigans is a nonsense concept to begin with, so a nonsensical name actually makes more sense than a sensible one. Plus there is an obvious analogy to making annual deposits and withdrawals in a zero-interest savings account.

"Daylight-saving" should IMO be reserved for reforms that would actually accomplish that, like banning RTO or shortening the legal workday.
posted by Not A Thing at 6:02 AM on October 14 [2 favorites]

The Province of Saskatchewan doesn't have the bi-annual time switch. It is a minor perk of living there. You never seem to miss that twice-a-year disruption, it amounts to just one less irritant in your life.
posted by SnowRottie at 6:34 AM on October 14 [1 favorite]

If you live on the leading edge of a time zone, as those on the northeast coast of the US do, daylight savings makes plenty of sense.

In Atlanta, at the far west of the Eastern Time Zone, it means we are stuck with the sun not rising until after 8 am for months.

There was a map published a few years ago that purported to show where it made more sense to keep DST vs. standard time, which took into account whether one was on the eastern or western side of a time zone. I can’t find it now, but it did a good job of demonstrating why there is such a divide on this issue. And since we can’t agree to keep one time vs. the other, we will keep switching back and forth, thereby making everyone unhappy.
posted by TedW at 7:16 AM on October 14 [1 favorite]

Let me just join the chorus of Atlantans that say we should be on Central time. We used to be! We can do it again!
posted by madcaptenor at 8:00 AM on October 14 [1 favorite]

The last time the US switched to year-round DST in 1973

I remember standing on the corner waiting for the bus to my high school and looking up at the stars, perfectly visible in the pre-dawn sky. As a solution to the oil crisis, it was one of the dumber ones.
posted by tommasz at 8:13 AM on October 14 [2 favorites]

How many time zones there are is a fun trivia question, to me at least. I like the handful of +00:45 ones.

I wonder if at some point, as server set clocks become more and more ubiquitous, a country will experiment with a continuously shifting time zone. Hold noon at when the Sun is actually at the top of the sky, say.
posted by lucidium at 8:32 AM on October 14 [1 favorite]

*Double* Daylight Savings time, I say. Either by breaking the year up into 4 sections and ramping up to +2/-2 …

Even better, we could just add 20 minutes every month for 6 months, then subtract 20 minutes a month for 6 months. How much easier can you get!
posted by TedW at 8:33 AM on October 14 [2 favorites]

In Atlanta, at the far west of the Eastern Time Zone, it means we are stuck with the sun not rising until after 8 am for months.

I also live in Atlanta, and will fight you all to stay on both permanent DST and staying in Eastern Time. This is my favorite time of year here, because it's not quite so ghastly hot anymore and we get the nice peaceful dark mornings.

This is why no accord will ever be reached on this subject, and we'll keep flipping the damn switch back and forth forever.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 9:40 AM on October 14 [1 favorite]

For some maps showing how it affects different US States, Mental Floss did an article: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/71521/heres-how-daylight-saving-time-affects-your-part-country.

Here in WA State, we are all in on DST year round, it's tiresome having the sun not rise until 8:30AM and go down at 4:30PM for several months during the cloudiest part of the year.
posted by drossdragon at 12:26 PM on October 14