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Daylight Saving Time: Still Happening. Still Unpopular (yahoo.com) 160

Posted by EditorDavid from the falling-backwards dept.
Millions will set their clocks back an hour tonight for Daylight Saving Time — only to set them forward an hour six months later.

But does anyone like doing this, asks Yahoo News: A recent AP-NORC poll found that about half of the American public, 47%, oppose the current daylight saving time system, compared to 40% who neither favor nor oppose the current practice, while 12% favor the current system, which involves most states switching their clocks twice a year.

Of those polled, 56% would prefer to have daylight saving time year-round, meaning less light in the morning for a tradeoff of more light in the evening. While 42% of Americans said they would prefer to have standard time year-round, which means more light in the morning and less light in the evening. And 12% of Americans prefer switching between standard time and daylight saving time.

Sleep doctors would prefer we switch to standard time permanently. "The U.S. should eliminate seasonal time changes in favor of a national, fixed, year-round time," the American Academy of Sleep Medicine said in a statement published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine last year. "Current evidence best supports the adoption of year-round standard time, which aligns best with human circadian biology and provides distinct benefits for public health and safety."
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Daylight Saving Time: Still Happening. Still Unpopular More

Daylight Saving Time: Still Happening. Still Unpopular

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  • 56 percent (Score:2, Insightful)

    by bonedonut ( 4687707 )

    Of Americans prefer to be an hour out of sync with the natural time cycle? Good lord.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by robbak ( 775424 )

      It just means that they'd prefer to get up and go to bed a bit earlier. That probably waking up in the dark in winter is worth an extra hour of light in the evening.

      Beginning work as late as 9:00 - with a quarter of the average daylight gone - isn't really optimal. You could say this is already out of sync! Historically people get up nearer dawn.

      • Historical precedent: A temporary, year-round DST in 1974 caused children to go to school in the dark, and this was a major factor in the change being repealed due to safety concerns and public outcry.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sjames ( 1099 )

          I was in 2nd grade then. We loved it, in part for the novelty and in part because we were allowed to take flashlights to school (relly cool when you're 7).

    • Define "natural time cycle". Is that where noon is when the sun is at its peak? That only happens if you live right in the middle of a time zone. Most people live "out of sync" to one side or the other, and the disagreement about to do is mostly between people who live on each side.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dvice ( 6309704 )

        Natural time cycle (length of day) for humans is speculated to be 25 hours based on experiments where human lives in isolated area without sun and clocks.

      • Well put. One's opinion on this is likely depends on where in the time zone you live .. east vs west.

        This is kind of ridiculous that nobody gets that ... we essentially have time zones to coordinate international travel. You can't have it all ways.

        But lets fight to the death on this. Lets make it into Rep vs Dem. Let the election speaking points be drawn up and let the shooting begin.

        This clearly a defining issue of our times, like who killed Jimmy Hoffa, where is Amelia Erhart, and is the new marble bathr

    • Of Americans prefer to be an hour out of sync with the natural time cycle? Good lord.

      Or, 56% of poll respondents don't share your opinion. Most of us tend to think our opinions are in the majority... it's jarring when we find out they're not.

      Also, time zones can be somewhat more arbitrary than you might think.

  • Health First. GMT for all. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Sunday November 02, 2025 @03:49AM (#65767156)

    56% vs 42% in America? We should probably pay attention to the sleep doctors on this one instead of spoiled people who simply want their flavor of change to take effect, because no change.

    No. The plants and other living animals waking to a rising sun in fact do not give a shit. When you can get any one of them to read a clock, I'll believe otherwise. Clocks are a human constraint against reality. Live in Zulu time, and you'll find you don't even need to acknowledge DST silliness. Ever.

    GMT for all. And maybe a little DMT while we're at it. If Earth can collectively agree what Year of Our Lord it is on a planet full of thousands of worshipped gods, I'm pretty sure we could pick one time zone and make it work too. Militaries do. Quite effectively.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kokuyo ( 549451 )

      Uhhh, I don't think people all agree on the year. Islam, Hebrew, Chinese, Persian and others... They all have different years. They just adhere to Gregorian for intrrnational relationships.

      Also I find the use of the word "our" to be a bit ironic considering the Reformation. All y'all reformed and protestant denomination basically have just one thing you truly agree on which is dislike of Catholics ;).

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by michelcolman ( 1208008 )

      GMT wouldn't make a difference. Americans are not going to get up at 7 am GMT when it's the middle of the night for them. So instead of saying "what time is it over there", we'd be asking "what time do they get up there, what time do business open there, 3 pm?". At least time zones make it clear what time of day it is, with business hours being pretty much the same everywhere. Also, having the date change in the middle of the afternoon is not exactly ideal either.

      Funnily enough, your very point that plants

      • GMT wouldn't make a difference. Americans are not going to get up at 7 am GMT when it's the middle of the night for them. So instead of saying "what time is it over there", we'd be asking "what time do they get up there, what time do business open there, 3 pm?". At least time zones make it clear what time of day it is, with business hours being pretty much the same everywhere. Also, having the date change in the middle of the afternoon is not exactly ideal either.

        Funnily enough, your very point that plants and other living animals waking to a rising sun don't give a shit goes against your argument that everyone should be using GMT. We should be using a local time that is not too far away from solar time. So winter time.

        GMT has a use - surely isn't for plants! I use GMT all the time, because I communicate all over the earth, and need to know local time as compared to GMT. It isn't that difficult, the trickiest part is some places it is tomorrow already.

        But if I have to talk to someone in Mumbai, I just figure out what is a compatible time. If at an unusual time in the local sleeping cycle, the protocol is the person requesting the meeting gets to interrupt their evening. you talk on their work hours.

        Now that we have c

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by caseih ( 160668 )

        China has all one time zone. The entire country of on Beijing time because CCP. If anything it makes all the time issues that much harder. Now you can't just think of time zone. You have to know what time they get up and go to with in different cities. Sounds horrible to me.

        • China has all one time zone. The entire country of on Beijing time because CCP. If anything it makes all the time issues that much harder. Now you can't just think of time zone. You have to know what time they get up and go to with in different cities. Sounds horrible to me.

          An entire generation or two of time-shifters has evolved to go to sleep at night by pressing a Do Not Disturb button for a few hours, only to awaken their Star Trek communicator of the NowFuture to a flood of electronic messages queued up and awaiting them that hardly require actual human interaction anymore.

          This is the generation who has no idea what it’s like to even be anxious about communicating in some form with another human in any time zone at any hour of any day anywhere. It is becoming more

      • We should be using a local time that is not too far away from solar time. So winter time.

        Which is actually the best argument for twice annual clock changes. That's a good compromise between everyone getting up at the same(ish) time relative to sunrise while also letting us use published and well-know schedules ("the store opens at 9 AM").

        I used to think we should just leave the clocks alone and if you wanted more evening light, start your day earlier. But think of the confusion that causes. Every store, office, and human interaction would be in flux all the time. "Oh, I forgot, your office open

      • These arguments against daylight savings are utterly bizarre. They are always from either: a) people living in tropics or low latitudes where annual variation in daylight hours is negligible; b) people living in polar or high latitude areas where variation is so large that no benefit from a one-hour shift arises, or c) people with no normal job schedule with work children school family friends etc so they can just “get up with the sun, like cows do”.

        I love how they say offsetting clocks twice a

    • Good for you. You can stay up all night masturbating and rebuilding the Linux kernel for fun, and then you can wake up at 4am sunrise like the cows. But the rest of us that actually live in society would prefer that society keeps a schedule that doesn’t unnecessarily waste an hour of sunlight at 4am when no one (except you and other hermits) can benefit from it.

  • If it were not good for the people, the govt would NEVER require it.

    NEVER.

  • Americans vote gooder (Score:4, Funny)

    by CRC'99 ( 96526 ) on Sunday November 02, 2025 @04:03AM (#65767170) Homepage

    We've seen what Americans will vote for.

    They've proven they don't deserve a say in the matter...

    • You must represent the all knowing pygmie tribes

    • We tried (Score:2, Interesting)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 )
      Voter suppression is highly effective. Last election 7 million people got denied the vote with common voter suppression tactics like illegal challenges to signatures and registrations and multi-hour wait times to vote in key districts specifically blue districts in America.

      It's not to count the votes, once you're at the point where The ballot box is being modified on a wide basis the game is already over and you're not a democracy. What matters is who gets the vote.

      And the key thing that people igno
  • Congress needs to do away with DST, but they can't do their job now !!

    • >"Congress needs to do away with DST"

      I think you mean, make DST full-time/always/permanent.

      >"but they can't do their job now !!"

      They haven't been able to do their job in decades.

  • Inability to judge short vs long term effects (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CptJeanLuc ( 1889586 ) on Sunday November 02, 2025 @05:01AM (#65767222)

    Twice a year people feel the slight inconvenience of a couple days to adjust their sleep schedule a whole one single hour. Which is something noticeable plus you may actually have to manually adjust some clocks, so that then feels important as something that disrupts the regular routine. Now; you cannot in the same way feel the same pain of being an hour out of sync with the ideal day/light rhythm, because it's a more subtle effect - but it is there ... and it is there for the better part of 180 days! Level of inconvenience multiplied by the number of times you are inconvenienced, and the latter scenario is much worse.

    People increasingly seem unable to judge tangible short term gains vs longer term losses. You only have to turn to politics to see that, people electing leaders who dangle some short term prize in front of them, like "I will bring down prices of eggs" or whatever; people elect them because of those short term narrow scope promises, and next thing those politicians start tearing down their world over the long term across the board. And then those voters start complaining about what happened, when what happens was telegraphed years in advance. But those voters seem simply ... unable ... to ... think ... long ... term. But hey, maybe they got cheaper eggs for a month or two, so that is something.

    Or take pain medication with opiates as an example. You are offered addictive pills to get rid of a modest amount of pain that normally you'd be able to grind your teeth a little bit and live through it. But you'd rather have no pain at all, so you take the pills, plus the ads say pain is something which has to be treated, talk to your big pharma sponsored doctor. And you repeat that choice to take the meds, again and again. Wind the clock forward one DST or two, and you are an addict. Turns out taking the meds was a net loss for you.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      We do have studies though. Indiana, Arizona and Saskatchewan all have areas that don't (or didn't) observe Daylight Saving. And haven't for over a century or more.

      If there was some definite "good" in this, we should be seeing ill-effects. Instead, we get relief from having to screw with the clocks twice a year.

      If daylight saving was so universal and good, why just one hour? 1 hour makes a huge difference at 3AM versus 4AM for sunrise, or 10pm vs 11PM for sunset at my locale which isn't anywhere close to the

    • There are several studies that show constantly flipping that one hour has long-term negative health impacts.

      Also fucking with kids schedules like that as long-term negative consequences for their academic careers.

      But hey let's ignore reality because we're angry at individuals.

      Oh, and one last thing. The only reason we still have daylight savings is that brick and mortar retail establishments get more sales when those more daylight. That is literally the only reason we are still doing it. If you

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Most of the world doesn't bother with DST. Many of those countries have even better reasons to adopt it, but the downsides are well understood.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pjt33 ( 739471 )

      Or take pain medication with opiates as an example.

      That's quite a bad example. The long-term effect of not treating chronic pain is that your nerves become so used to transmitting pain signals that they keep doing it even after the actual cause has resolved itself. It's a lose-lose scenario. I've tried both paths (no medication in my 20s when I had a serious carpal tunnel inflammation; opiates in my 30s when I had a damaged disc from a traffic incident) and although the opiates didn't fully remove the pain

  • I mean it's not as if anybody natters on about "democracy" all the time, lol. Who cares what most people want?

  • Doesn't add up (Score:3)

    by rossdee ( 243626 ) on Sunday November 02, 2025 @07:07AM (#65767314)

    56% want permanent DST
    42% want want permanent standard time
    12 want to switch back and forth like it is now
    total 110%

    • It's disturbing so much ink has been spilled before anyone pointed out this obvious red flag in the article. But I suspect it was a typo: Instead of "12% of Americans" I believe they really meant "12 Americans" want it to stay as it is. ðY And the remaining 10% unaccounted was the "No reply" and "Get off my lawn!" cluster.

  • Ehm... (Score:5, Informative)

    by LordHighExecutioner ( 4245243 ) on Sunday November 02, 2025 @07:08AM (#65767316)
    Millions will set their clocks back an hour tonight for Daylight Saving Time — only to set them forward an hour six months later.

    Actually, millions will exit from Daylight Saving Time [wikipedia.org] period, to enter regular solar time.

  • You have it wrong (Score:5, Informative)

    by cjonslashdot ( 904508 ) on Sunday November 02, 2025 @07:09AM (#65767318)
    Last night clocks went back to RETURN TO STANDARD TIME. Daylight savings time is what we had all summer.

    • No no no no no. Right now we're in daylight savings time, we're saving the daylight so we can slap it on the end of the work day in 6 months again. ;-)

    • Not only that, but it hasn't been 6 month periods for a long time now. It's 8 months on DST and 4 months on standard time. We're on DST more than not.

  • How about a compromise (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rossdee ( 243626 ) on Sunday November 02, 2025 @07:14AM (#65767322)

    Advance the clocks 1/2 an hour and don't touch them ever again.

    (apart from the odd leap second https://yro.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org] necessary to keep the time accurate with the planet.)

    • Way to go by pleasing nobody and introducing yet another headache in the form of a half timezone that much of the world abolished with good reason.

  • The summary says "standard time year-round, which means more light in the morning and less light in the evening".

    I don't think that's right. They should be about the same, more or less, depending on the wobble.

    Lots of bad math in the summary.
  • ...and still producing the same articles twice per year.

  • Daylight Saving Time (DST): Approximately 238 days per year (about 65% of the year)

    From the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November
    That's roughly 7 months and 3 weeks

    Standard Time: Approximately 127 days per year (about 35% of the year)

    From the first Sunday in November to the second Sunday in March
    That's roughly 4 months and 1 week

  • Our bureaucracy is good at moving ahead with ideas that are unpopular and inefficient, unable to change course or reform really any institution.

    People often suggest term limits. But I think a small lifeclock in a politician's hand should start blinking when it's time for them to join Carousel.

  • Actual DLS is march to october/november, that's the time that gets our bioclock out of whack. We should never consider that the normal time. With setting the clock back, you actually set it back to original time.

  • split the difference. Set the clocks a half-hour between Standard and DST. Of all the times I've suggested this I've never had any reply saying why it might be unworkable or a bad idea. Any takers?

    • I never appreciated DST (here called BST) until I lived in a higher latitude. Putting aside the usual arguments from hermits and recluses like “just get up at sunrise like cows do” that don’t apply to normal people with work, school, children and other schedules, the main advantage of DST in moderate latitudes (45-55N) is that it redistributes (mostly) societally-unusable summer sunlight (say around 4am) to societally-useful sunlight (around 8pm). Your scheme would not have that advantage.
  • and people still complain about it online and nobody still does anything to change it

  • Most clocks, computers, (etc) change time automatically fer chrissake.
    Next spring, go to bed an an hour earlier one night.

    Now, the sun is shining brightly when I get up...how nice.
    Next summer, I will be able to enjoy those long evenings...

    People act like this is some major hardship. Get over it!
    The controversy is just news corporations and politicians selling clicks.

  • Golf is the only activity that absolutely must have natural light far into the evening in summer.
    Mainly the rich and powerful play golf.

    I wish they'd just adjust their own schedules and leave the rest of us alone.

  • I'll just go straight-up anecdotal on this: most of the people I know are fine with the switch. In fact, the only time I hear about all the alleged problems is at the bi-annual Clickbait Festival inspired by the DST/EST change.

  • Doctors want permanent standard time, while businesses want permanent daylight time. Switching the clocks twice a year is a compromise.

  • I hate changing the clocks (grew up without it, it needs to GO AWAY!) but maybe syncing sleep to work schedule is the issue. Can that stop?
    Why not just pick a time to get up that can stay same all year? Set up a schedule so during part of the year you have an extra hour to get ready for work. Keep the same schedule year round for yourself.
    Probably lot of headaches I'm not thinking of , but like all complet solutions, there's a simple logical elegant solution that is wrong.

  • I have never understood this. (Score:3)

    by isomer1 ( 749303 ) on Sunday November 02, 2025 @01:30PM (#65767960)
    Why would it matter if you go to bed at 11 and wake at 7?
    Or go to bed at 10 and wake at 6?
    Or hell even go to bed at 4 and wake at 12?

    Why are the numbers on the wall so important to you? People post insane comments like, "but the kids would have to catch the bus in the dark" ... then just start school at a different number when the sun is up. We shift our schedules around constantly for events. We shift our *school* and *work* schedules around constantly for any number of reasons. Social inertia is just an illusion in this debate. There is no reason to be switching the clocks or to care which direction we pick (though standard time obviously aligns better with the rest of the world). If schools in one region open a half-hour or hour later than another in a different part of the same timezone then so be it. And yes - you can do the same thing with timezones, there is no reason that "4:32pm" should be different in different parts of the world, let alone country.

    It's like we're living in this insane numerology cult that isn't even aware of its own existence.
    • DST critics: “Adjusting clocks in a standardised way twice a year is ReAlLy COmPLIcaTeD” Also DST critics: “Just get every adult child school office shop restaurant factory sport train bus doctor and pub to adjust its schedule throughout the year based on sunlight and whatever vibe takes its fancy. ReAlLy SiMpLe.”
  • Incorrect - Daylight Savings Time is from March to November... we're leaving DST and entering Standard Time. And DST goes for 8 months, and Standard Time goes for 4 months. Not 6 months apart. I know this because it's my biggest fear- having to testify on stand and have to explain this time offset in front of large rooms of people under duress.

  • I grew up in the "Twin Cities" of Minneapolis and Saint Paul Minnesota The argument about daylight savings time was largely between farmers ("the cows need to be milked and they don't go by the clock") and urban folks ("its not safe for my kids to walk to school in the dark.").

    One year, for reasons lost to memory, the Mayor of Saint Paul decided to start daylight savings time a week earlier than the rest of the state. The result was a different time in Minneapolis and Saint Paul. The suburbs all had to deci

  • The change back in the fall is fine by me, I get an extra hour of sleep. It's the "spring forward" change that's unpopular.

    Maybe we should just keep doing the "fall back one hour" every year, and cancel the "spring forward one hour," everybody wins.

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