Daylight Savings Time

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nOOky

Diamond Member
Aug 17, 2004
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We can catch up on sleep when we're dead.

Lack of sleep being right up there with stress as a cause of many health-related issues I beg to differ :p we need to learn to relax more as a whole in our frenetic world imho.
 
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Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
40,906
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It's not the "losing an hour of sleep" that's a bother, it's "completely altering my biological schedule so what was 7AM is now 8AM". Waking time changes, sleeping time changes, meal times change. That's what takes weeks to adjust to.
One could see these adjustments as a benefit, not a detraction from your lifestyle. A little shakeup is good for most people, in fact practically everyone. A big shakeup too.

I heard a guy say some years ago that he thought it was a good idea to stay up way past your bedtime... occasionally.

Myself, the switcheroo Sunday was barely a blip on my radar. I'm not super patterned right now. The biggest issue for me was that hour+ getting 8 different devices changed. Some of those devices are complicated. Every one is different.
 

nakedfrog

No Lifer
Apr 3, 2001
62,919
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What do you do when you change timezones? What do you do when the sun comes up and goes down at different times (which happens literally everyday)?
1) It depends. Normally I'd be on vacation, so I could probably just stay on my regular schedule.
2) Nothing? Why would that have anything to do with it?
 

Zorba

Lifer
Oct 22, 1999
15,613
11,256
136
Sucks in the winter when it's still dark at 8AM.

I'd prefer standard time year round.

In order of preference:

Year Round Standard > Year Round DST > Switching back and forth.
The whole idea of DST is trading low utility day light hours for high utility day light hours. Having standard time year round would give up 238 extra high utility hours a year, so you don't have to loss 1 hour of sleep a year. That doesn't seem like a good trade to me.
 
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Heartbreaker

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2006
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One could see these adjustments as a benefit, not a detraction from your lifestyle. A little shakeup is good for most people, in fact practically everyone. A big shakeup too.

I heard a guy say some years ago that he thought it was a good idea to stay up way past your bedtime... occasionally.

Myself, the switcheroo Sunday was barely a blip on my radar. I'm not super patterned right now. The biggest issue for me was that hour+ getting 8 different devices changed. Some of those devices are complicated. Every one is different.

This shakeup brings an increase in car accidents and heart attacks.

But what's a few car accidents and heart attacks?



In fact, the number of heart attacks increased 24 percent on the Monday following a daylight saving time, compared with the daily average for the weeks surrounding the start of daylight saving time, according to a 2014 study in the journal Open Heart.

Just because you don't feel that it isn't affecting you, doesn't mean that it isn't. People often don't notice that increased sleep deprivation, that leads to poorer reactions, judgement, and increased metabolic stress.

It's utterly brain dead, that we still inflict this nonsensical switch on the populous, given the evidence we have of it's detrimental outcomes.
 

zzyzxroad

Diamond Member
Jan 29, 2017
3,264
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When I was much younger and had to report into an office the spring change bothered me. Back then I had to get out of my house no later than 6:30 AM to beat traffic.
 

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
70,650
13,831
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www.anyf.ca
One could see these adjustments as a benefit, not a detraction from your lifestyle. A little shakeup is good for most people, in fact practically everyone. A big shakeup too.

I heard a guy say some years ago that he thought it was a good idea to stay up way past your bedtime... occasionally.

Myself, the switcheroo Sunday was barely a blip on my radar. I'm not super patterned right now. The biggest issue for me was that hour+ getting 8 different devices changed. Some of those devices are complicated. Every one is different.

It's easy for you to say when you're retired. You don't need to be anywhere for a certain time or really have any kind of schedule. You don't even need to look at any clock or worry about what time it is. You can just follow your body's internal clock.
 

hal2kilo

Lifer
Feb 24, 2009
26,150
12,357
136
We can catch up on sleep when we're dead.
That's basically, what I'm guessing. It's just wasted time apparently to my psyche. Got about 3 and a half last night.
Lack of sleep being right up there with stress as a cause of many health-related issues I beg to differ :p we need to learn to relax more as a whole in our frenetic world imho.
According to current science, I should be a babbling idiot, well into Alzheimer's, with my sleeping history. Maybe I should phrase that differently, I'm sure some of you would agree with the babbling idiot part.
 
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Zorba

Lifer
Oct 22, 1999
15,613
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This shakeup brings an increase in car accidents and heart attacks.

But what's a few car accidents and heart attacks?





Just because you don't feel that it isn't affecting you, doesn't mean that it isn't. People often don't notice that increased sleep deprivation, that leads to poorer reactions, judgement, and increased metabolic stress.

It's utterly brain dead, that we still inflict this nonsensical switch on the populous, given the evidence we have of it's detrimental outcomes.
The heart attacks are likely just brought forward. DST didn't clog the artery.

The increase in accidents is true. However, this is massively offset by the decrease in accidents, especially involving pedestrians and bikers due to the later daylight.


Maybe look at wholistic research not research that is created to be biased right out of the gate. DST lasts 238 days, doesn't make sense to only look at 1 of those days and claim it's a bad policy. I do agree changing is poor policy, we should just go to DST year round. Year round standard time would be a horrible mistake in most of the US.

DST is a perfect example of why good governance is so hard. People ignore all the benefits of a policy, and only focus on the negatives. Bitch about a day or two of increased accidents from tired drivers, say nothing about the hundreds of deaths avoided the rest of the time. DST, like most policies, is a trade-off of pros and cons, from a wholistic view the net is positive, which is why a huge chunk of the developed world follows it. But because people never recognize the benefits, we get whining every year about how an hour of sleep is so impossible to adjust, that gaining 238 hours of high utility hours is not worth it.
 
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obidamnkenobi

Golden Member
Sep 16, 2010
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From the article:
When year-round DST was last used in the 1970s, many Americans criticized sending kids to school in the dark.

Growing up in Norway this is hilarious. Sunset was at 9:30, sunset at 3 pm. I went both to and from school in the dark! We were fine.. Of course our parents were responsible and put reflectors on our clothes.
 
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obidamnkenobi

Golden Member
Sep 16, 2010
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If we do DST year round the sun will never be at it's peak at noon, more like 1 pm. Noon is only "high noon" during "winter time". So wouldn't it be more natural to fall back once and then never change it again? Could argue that's the default time.
Or compormise and change it half hour once and then leave it?
1616004782882.png
 

hal2kilo

Lifer
Feb 24, 2009
26,150
12,357
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From the article:


Growing up in Norway this is hilarious. Sunset was at 9:30, sunset at 3 pm. I went both to and from school in the dark! We were fine.. Of course our parents were responsible and put reflectors on our clothes.
Hell, up here in Seattle area with DST, might as well not bother lighting any fireworks off on the 4th until about 9:45 when most of the glow in the west is gone. It was almost light at 6 am last week. Not now.
 

blackangst1

Lifer
Feb 23, 2005
22,902
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For those of us who dont recognize DST (AZ) it also complicates things as although we dont change our clocks, we do change timezones. It can be confusing when try to schedule meetings or whatnot. Takes a minute to remember what time zone we're in.
 

Heartbreaker

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2006
5,173
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Maybe look at wholistic research not research that is created to be biased right out of the gate. DST lasts 238 days, doesn't make sense to only look at 1 of those days and claim it's a bad policy. I do agree changing is poor policy, we should just go to DST year round. Year round standard time would be a horrible mistake in most of the US.

It increases accident rate for a week after the change. Not one day. I am still having a harder time in the morning, and going to sleep at my regular time right now.

Also why assume that DST is an otherwise universal benefit, after the initial disruption.

I find the later evening sun, makes it harder to get to sleep at night, and would prefer STD even in summer.

Your preference for DST is just that, a personal preference, mine is different, and more people prefer year round Standard Time to year round DST:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/14/politics/daylight-saving-time-analysis/index.html
An AP-NORC poll from late 2019 found that just 31% of Americans wanted to move to daylight saving time all year around. That beat out the 28% who wanted to keep switching back and forth between daylight saving and standard time, but trailed 40% who yearned for standard time all year around.
 

Zorba

Lifer
Oct 22, 1999
15,613
11,256
136
If we do DST year round the sun will never be at it's peak at noon, more like 1 pm. Noon is only "high noon" during "winter time". So wouldn't it be more natural to fall back once and then never change it again? Could argue that's the default time.
Or compormise and change it half hour once and then leave it?
View attachment 41298
More people are active at 7pm than 7 am. That's the whole point, move daylight from low utility hours to high utility hours.
 
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obidamnkenobi

Golden Member
Sep 16, 2010
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It increases accident rate for a week after the change. Not one day. I am still having a harder time in the morning, and going to sleep at my regular time right now.

Also why assume that DST is an otherwise universal benefit, after the initial disruption.

I find the later evening sun, makes it harder to get to sleep at night, and would prefer STD even in summer.

Now there are many good reasons to go to bed early, but if it's so early that a 8 pm sunset bothers you then perhaps you should buy some dark curtains? Having lived most of my life at 60N, and even some time above the arctic circle (i.e sunset between 10pm and never..) this is not a very difficult problem to solve.
Getting more light for activities outside for those who prefer that on the other hand is quite a bit harder to do!

Some people getting darker curtains. VS building massive floodlight systems..
 
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Jun 18, 2000
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Zorba

Lifer
Oct 22, 1999
15,613
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It increases accident rate for a week after the change. Not one day. I am still having a harder time in the morning, and going to sleep at my regular time right now.

Also why assume that DST is an otherwise universal benefit, after the initial disruption.

I find the later evening sun, makes it harder to get to sleep at night, and would prefer STD even in summer.

Your preference for DST is just that, a personal preference, mine is different, and more people prefer year round Standard Time to year round DST:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/14/politics/daylight-saving-time-analysis/index.html
It decreases pedestrian and biking accidents for 238 days. If we went to year round DST, the week of increased accidents would go away, the avoided accidents would increase, though, resulting in even less total accidents.

I doubt you are going to bed before sunset in the winter even with DST, if you are, you an unusual case.

I'm not assuming anything, there is plenty of data out there on the benefits, you just have to dig past all the "omg, these three days suck!" articles to get to it. This is why nearly every first world country uses some form of Day Light Savings. When Indiana dropped year round standard time, adult and child activity increased, employment increased, car accidents decreased, pedestrian and bicycle deaths decreased, and robberies decreased.

Kids being able to play with their parents after school is more important than your inability to adjust your biological clock to an hour one day, IMHO.

As far as going to bed with the sun up, either this only happens for a short part of the summer or it would still happen with standard time, just for less days. Because in most of the US sunset time changes by more than hour between the time change and summer solstice.
 

nakedfrog

No Lifer
Apr 3, 2001
62,919
19,153
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Hell, up here in Seattle area with DST, might as well not bother lighting any fireworks off on the 4th until about 9:45 when most of the glow in the west is gone. It was almost light at 6 am last week. Not now.
Even in Omaha, NE, it's not ideal to set them off until 9:30-9:45PM on the 4th...
 

obidamnkenobi

Golden Member
Sep 16, 2010
1,407
423
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More people are active at 7pm than 7 am. That's the whole point, move daylight from low utility hours to high utility hours.

I know that. But how will we have a duel at high noon, with least chance of one of us having the sun in our eyes??! Have you thought of that huh?! Focus on the important things!
(And no, duel at 1:12 pm does not sound cool, not acceptable alternative)
 
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Heartbreaker

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2006
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It decreases pedestrian and biking accidents for 238 days. If we went to year round DST, the week of increased accidents would go away, the avoided accidents would increase, though, resulting in even less total accidents.

I doubt you are going to bed before sunset in the winter even with DST, if you are, you an unusual case.

I'm not assuming anything, there is plenty of data out there on the benefits, you just have to dig past all the "omg, these three days suck!" articles to get to it. This is why nearly every first world country uses some form of Day Light Savings. When Indiana dropped year round standard time, adult and child activity increased, employment increased, car accidents decreased, pedestrian and bicycle deaths decreased, and robberies decreased.

Kids being able to play with their parents after school is more important than your inability to adjust your biological clock to an hour one day, IMHO.

As far as going to bed with the sun up, either this only happens for a short part of the summer or it would still happen with standard time, just for less days. Because in most of the US sunset time changes by more than hour between the time change and summer solstice.

You need stats to back it up.

Otherwise it's still nothing more than a preference, and if we are being democratic, the #1 preference expressed is year round standard time.
 
Jun 18, 2000
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You need stats to back it up.

Otherwise it's still nothing more than a preference, and if we are being democratic, the #1 preference expressed is year round standard time.

You're linked article is worthless, judging by the number of people that confuse the two. Find a poll that simply asks if they'd rather have an extra hour of daylight in the morning or the evening.
 
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Zorba

Lifer
Oct 22, 1999
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You need stats to back it up.

Otherwise it's still nothing more than a preference, and if we are being democratic, the #1 preference expressed is year round standard time.
I've already post some articles one this thread, feel free to find them and read them. Or look for articles yourself that deal with more than one week in March (which also corrolates with spring break across much of the south that could explain some of those accidents).

ETA:





Unfortunately a lot of the research out there is based solely on the change overs. But it is pretty easy to understand people are more active when it is daylight and more active in the evening. I previously posted a link that showed unemployment in Indiana decreased after they implemented DST, since most evening activity means more economic activity.
 
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