What do you think about daylight savings time?

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Evenings are the most stressful time for me. Kids homework, out of school activities, making dinner including food for the next day...it all adds up to a jam-packed agenda with me constantly watching the clock and the time I’ll be able to relax. For some reason however,the extra hour of darkness in the evening is a relief because I always know it’s not quite as late as it seems.

Saying all of this, I’d still keep dst

I think it's nonsense. I would prefer to stay on standard time all year long.

Maybe the federal govt could recommend that state & municipal govts, and businesses, do everything an hour earlier. but that would require all the businesses & people to change the clock-time at which they do things. It's much easier and simpler to just change the clock-time, advancing it forward.

Michael829

There's a case for either, ST or DST.

With Standard Time, an advantage is that clock-time would be close to sundial time, Local True Solar Time. Astronomers, and probably other scientists too, seem to prefer that. It has aesthetic appeal, and I'd prefer it if aesthetics were the only consideration.

Also, with year-round DST, then, at the winter solstice, at the U.S. Canadian border, at the extreme west end of a time-zone, it would be dark till about 8:44 a.m., DST (civil twilight would't start till then). That's the disadvantage that we hear about, with kids going to school in the morning dark.

But i claim that the evening dark is more dangerous, for the reasons that I mentioned. With year-round DST, kids getting home at 5:00 p.m. would be home before dark, even at the winter solstice at the U.S-Canadian Border, at the extreme east end of a time-zone.

(I'm assuming that each time zone is bounded by meridians 7.5 degrees from the longitudes that are multiples of 15 degrees. But of course the time-zones zig-zag a bit, and I haven't taken that into account.)

Anyway, isn't there appeal in doing everything earlier (by the Sun)?

Suppose you like to get up early. With ST, as opposed to DST, everyone is doing everything later (in terms of Sun-time). Getting up later, staying up later. That makes it more difficult to turn-in early and get up early.

Ideally, eventually when everyone is used to doing things early, in terms of Local True Solar Time, then maybe we could change back to ST, and everyone would agree to shift their schedules an hour earlier, by the clock, in order to keep the same true-solar schedule they had with DST.

Michael929

It's a stupid waste of time.

Pun intended?

I am not a morning person thus dark in the morning is more dangerous for me. As a person who does stuff in the middle of the night the twilight at 3:30 AM and sun up by 4:15 or 4:30 AM would disturb me.

For me its the other way around - more darkness in the evening makes me feel it is later than it is and sometimes I am feeling it's bedtime around 9PM(5h after sunset). Which would be a good thing if I wanted to wake up at 6-7AM. But I hate morning hours(they are boring, cold and the lightbulb and sunrise seems way too bright after sleeping in darkness) and I love evening hours(lots of information online, warm after whole day of heating, soft light of a lightbulb) therefore I break the early sleepiness and end up staying up till 2AM, ignoring the darkness outside, thinking "it's winter so it's dark but it isn't so late yet, is it?".
If I would experience the sleepiness at 10PM it would be a sign to start evening routine to go to sleep about midnight. But with 9PM it's just "my biological clock is broken due to the damn darkness, let's ignore it".

I guess it's the compromise, for all of Europe to be on the same time. The compromise of the East 15th meridian as the standard meridian means that Poland's clocks read about 48 minutes earlier than they would if they used a standard meridian at the middle of Poland.



Then you want Summer-Time, with clocks set one hour forward from Winter-Time or Standard Time. "Daylight-Saving Time" is our word for Summer-Time, because it saves daylight, gives us more daylight hours during our business-day.
So you'd want the time that you were using in the summer to be in effect for all year. That's what I'd prefer here too.

When artificial light at night became convenient, we let it change our schedules, putting us farther from nature, farther from the Sun's time. Summer-Time is a way of moving our schedule closer to the Sun's time, the natural day's time.



Poland doesn't have such a problem with dark mornings, because the east edge of Poland is right near the Central European standard meridian, 15 degrees East longitude. The problem is with dark afternoons, because the east edge of Poland is so far east of that Central European central meridian.

In the city of Krynki, whose position I estimate (from a map) as latitude 53.2, longitude 23.8 East, at the Winter Solstice it gets dark (civil twilight ends) at about 3:51 p.m., Winter-Time (the time that's in effect now).

i'm talking about when it gets dark, the end of Civil-Twilight.

But if Summer-Time remained in effect all year, then it would get dark there at 4:51 p.m. So, kids getting home around 5:00 p.m. wouldn't be spending over an hour in the dark, on their way home. Everyone would have more afternoon daytime. In fact, everyone would have more daytime.



Yes, exactly. The day wouldn't end so soon after the end of lessons, or the end of work.




Yes. More free time in the daytime.

Michael829

The time is ripe for 'artificial intelligence algorithms' to reassess time zones, and even prove that changing our clocks ahead, and back an hour every few months is unnecessary. The U.S. states of Arizona, and Hawaii don't change there clocks every few months.

After several days of Daylight Savings Time, I'm still struck by the extra daylight left at 6pm during the these early Spring days.

I think it sucks, but I'm pretty sure that's the whole idea.

I am for it because I am not a morning person. Having it dark makes waking up early that much worse.

I would have Daylight savings time run from mid-April to mid-October.

In Western Australia we have had DST two or three times and each time the majority of people have voted against it. I think the only other state that doesn't have DST is Queensland.

I didn't mind having it when we did, it was a novelty to me.

I like the spring ahead part, but not the fall back part. It being pitch dark by 4:30 pm is just plain weird.

I like putting the clocks forwards, which we will be doing this weekend. I wish they'd leave the clocks forward and not put them back in October because it'd be nice to still have daylight at 5 o'clock in the afternoon. But then it'd still be dark at 8 o'clock in the morning.

I just wish the UK was somewhere on the planet where you get more daylight hours than night hours all year round. And scorching heat every summer and rain every winter, no snow or freezing temperatures except for night times.

There’s no such place on Earth. Planets and moons with very small axial tilts may have peaks of eternal light. Too bad they’re at the poles!

I don't care which time they choose, but choose one and be done with it. It takes weeks to reschedule my biological clock after every time change. I feel tired and cranky for 4-6 weeks a year due to the time change. I have too many other challenges in my life without that added stress.