In my 20s, I strongly considered taking some time off to create and drive petitions across the Pacific states to put us all on permanent PDT (matching Arizona). In my research, I saw it would take an act of Congress to make that happen, so I stood down.
I think if people understood that daylight time = get up early and standard time = get up late, most would agree that getting up late is better.
/s
In theory, to get a similar result to the hour change twice a year, you only need ~20 seconds of change every day, though I think you could do even better if you took location into account.
I wonder how hard it would be to program an alarm to automatically offset a default wakeup time based on location and season to always occur after dawn while minimizing daily delta (and obviously allowing for an override "wake up at h:mm local time tomorrow, my work meeting doesn't care about my snowflake sleep program." Seems relatively achievable, but maybe harder to integrate into a normal phone UX.
[0]https://www.mediaite.com/politics/that-daylight-saving-time-...
[1]https://www.cotton.senate.gov/news/speeches/floor-speech-on-...
I’d be all for permanent Standard Time but there’s no way that’ll happen with the old people in charge of our government. Most of them probably wake up at 4am already.
I don't really care how time is reckoned so long as there is some
agreement about it, but I object to being told that I am saving
daylight when my reason tells me that I am doing nothing of the kind.
I even object to the implication that I am wasting something
valuable if I stay in bed after the sun has risen. As an admirer
of moonlight I resent the bossy insistence of those who want to
reduce my time for enjoying it. At the back of the Daylight Saving
scheme I detect the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism, eager
to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier, to make
them healthy, wealthy and wise in spite of themselves.
-- Robertson Davies, The diary of Samuel Marchbanks,
Clarke, Irwin (1947), XIX, Sunday
The problem, I think, is that what a lot of people want is they want the sun to set quite late, like it does in summer time. But DST isn't going to give you those long summer afternoons in winter, because the sun just isn't up long enough; and the trade-off you'd make for maybe coming off work into the start of dusk is that dawn would start after you start working, which turns out to be pretty bad for your circadian rhythm.
Was that a typo?
Permanent DST means kids walking to school in the dark.
Changing the clock twice a year fixes that and lets us avoid both, with the only cost being people complaining for a day afterwards. It's like ripping off the bandaid, instead of doing a slow agonizing pull that lasts months.
And yes, I know some people take like 6 weeks to adjust and they will complain incessantly to stop it, but for the whole group, the least painful thing (I'd argue by far) is just moving the clock an hour.
Similar idea with businesses.
Maybe people living in northern latitudes can have a different schedule than than south.
It means much more than that:
> Later sunrises and sunsets, as seen with pDST, are associated with multiple long-term health outcomes including increases in stroke, heart attacks, diabetes, obesity, and cancer.[8–10]
> The increase in obesity and other cardiovascular health problems show that even if DST were to encourage exercise in some individuals it is not enough to outweigh the effects of sleep and circadian disruption on food choices, metabolism, hunger hormones, and glucose control and other cardiovascular risk factors.[11,12]
* https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10476036/
The peer reviewed literature on the effects of changing time, pDST, and pST is quite extensive:
How about the American Medical Association?
* https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/ama-press-releases/ama...
Or American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, American Thoracic Society, and American College of Chest Physicians concurring?
* https://www.labmanager.com/new-position-statement-supports-p...
Chronobiologists?
* https://www.chronobiocanada.com/official-statements
* https://www.chronobiology.ch/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/JBR-...
Really, the question is which system (standard, DST, or both) causes the least damage?
Also worth noting we tried permanent DST a few decades ago and it was repealed within a year because people didn't like it. Approval in advance was north of 70% and in the aftermath below 40%, IIRC.
Personally, I'd prefer permanent standard time.
(It's actually 8-5 with an hour's break).
Why not change the working hours of stores, and tv programming and other schedules too?
In the end, you get the same thing as a clock change, but having to change the times of everything everywhere.
Things have improved though: back in the 2000s when the 'Bush DST' change occurred, all sorts of software had hard-coded assumptions.
This is because US developers, who wrote a good portion of OS and other software, had never experienced a tzdata update first hand. So that when (e.g.) PST8PDT had its rules changed, it turns a lot of stuff needed to be rebooted to pickup things up.
A bunch of code was put in to notice changes dynamically, so in 2026 things should hopefully be smoother if there are new rules.
Having experienced both I would take the no time change every time. And I have yet to meet anyone who would (small sample size for sure, I'm sure someones done some polling).
I complain all summer long.
Tell me you never had issues with sleep without telling me you never had issues with sleep.
* https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/ama-cal...
* https://www.labmanager.com/new-position-statement-supports-p...
* http://www.chronobiology.ch/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/JBR-D...
* https://www.chronobiology.com/impact-daylight-saving-time-ci...
* https://esrs.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/To_the_EU_Commiss...
* https://www.chronobiocanada.com/official-statements
* https://srbr.org/advocacy/daylight-saving-time-presskit/
* https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10476036/
* https://old.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/dq2nv3/
> The authors take the position that, based on comparisons of large populations living in DST or ST or on western versus eastern edges of time zones, the advantages of permanent ST outweigh switching to DST annually or permanently. Four peer reviewers provided expert critiques of the initial submission, and the SRBR Executive Board approved the revised manuscript as a Position Paper to help educate the public in their evaluation of current legislative actions to end DST. […] The choice of DST is political and therefore can be changed. If we want to improve human health, we should not fight against our body clock, and therefore, we should abandon DST and return to Standard Time (which is when the sun clock time most closely matches the social clock time) throughout the year. This solution would fix both the acute and the chronic problems of DST. We therefore strongly support removing DST changes or removing permanent DST and having governing organizations choose permanent Standard Time for the health and safety of their citizens.
* https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/07487304198541...
Recent US public opinion:
> As the March 9 [2025] switch to daylight saving time (DST) approaches in the U.S., the majority of Americans (54%) say they are ready to do away with the practice. By contrast, 40% of U.S. adults say they are in favor of daylight saving time, while 6% are uncertain.
[…]
> The plurality of Americans, 48%, say they would prefer to have standard time the whole year, including summer. Half as many, 24%, prefer having daylight saving time in place the whole year, including winter. The smallest percentage, 19%, prefer the status quo of switching between the two each year.
* https://news.gallup.com/poll/657584/half-daylight-saving-tim...
And that, if we do actually implement year-round daylight saving time, everyone will still call it EST.
But someone say working physical, outdoor job might prefer to have more sunlight early on.
Or vice versa, have less of their work day in the afternoon heat peak
And, yes, dynamic school schedules don't work because they need to be synced at some level with work schedules. A one-time shift might work though.
I mostly don't have a dog in this hunt. I pretty much set my own schedule absent the odd morning appointment.
Also, 2 hour late starts for cold are a fairly common thing to happen due to cold in northern states. Now you’re talking about 3 hour late starts.
It's a continuum, not a discrete state. Even in the northern states, they're out in the dark for perhaps 4-6 weeks. Now that will get extended to, say, 10+ weeks.
To start:
> Later sunrises and sunsets, as seen with pDST, are associated with multiple long-term health outcomes including increases in stroke, heart attacks, diabetes, obesity, and cancer.[8–10]
> The increase in obesity and other cardiovascular health problems show that even if DST were to encourage exercise in some individuals it is not enough to outweigh the effects of sleep and circadian disruption on food choices, metabolism, hunger hormones, and glucose control and other cardiovascular risk factors.[11,12]
People wanting to drive home with a bit of light doesn’t really offset everyone’s sleep getting screwed up, especially those with later natural circadian rhythms.
Europe is wrong 50% of the time. The US[1] will be wrong 100% of the time. It can mostly get away with this because it spans the continent. But still, you're going to deal with the stupidity that crossing the Mexican border you will always have to correct your watch.
[1] And Alberta + BC. But really - all of Canada is just a rounding error anyway!
Charles Moore, author of the Forth programming languageIn the US in the 1970s, but more recently in Russia as well:
* https://globalnews.ca/news/1469007/russia-abolishes-daylight...
* https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/01/russia-state-d...
It's worth trying again, it's not like it can't be reverted again.
Plus, in Winter most people at best get off work around dusk anyway.
In addition, most studies indicate health benefits for standard time relative to both switching and permanent DST.
We tried permanent DST back in the 70s, and it sucked. We switched back. If we're going to make a change, it should be to standard time.
Before timezones, "noon" was the point where the sun was the highest in the sky.
It seems we should focus on having our timezones be more in line with what "noon" is supposed to be: IE, major population centers should have "noon" close to true noon, with a little more flexibility for rural areas so they can stay on the same time as their closest major population center.
Which is why railroads started instituting time zones in the late 19th century: because it turns out having to recalibrate your watch every hour or so is a recipe for creating train crashes. Railroad time didn't become standard time until the early 20th century, in large part because a lot of the smaller cities were pretty irate at having to adjust their clocks. (It also doesn't help that coincidentally, places like Chicago and New York City are very near the center meridian of their time zone).
Chicago is very close to the eastern edge of the Central time zone, though I know that was not true throughout history.
We can get an idea of the issues in China, which has a single national timezone instead of 4 or 5 geographical time zones. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_China
> Beijing Time users in Xinjiang usually schedule their daily activities two hours later than those who live in eastern China. As such, stores and offices in Xinjiang are commonly open from 10:00 to 19:00 Beijing Time, which equals 08:00 to 17:00 in Ürümqi Time.[17] This is known as the work/rest time in Xinjiang.
Thus, "9-5" would get a name like "work time", or the existing name of "day shift" would have increased popularity.
Great documentary on the history of human relationship with time is available here: https://www.pbs.org/video/pbs-indies-time-1/
You can say today's date is 27 Messidor Year CCXXXIV if you wish.
The problem is when you want to coordinate events between people following different time conventions.
Timezones as we know it started off as a railroad company invention. Does the London/Birmingham train follow London time or Birmingham time? Does the stop in Rugby use Rugby time?
DST in the US used to be a regional choice until 1966. Coordination became an issue.
"The lack of standardization led to a patchwork where some areas observed DST while adjacent areas did not, and it was not unheard of to have to reset a clock several times during a short trip (e.g., bus drivers operating on West Virginia Route 2 between Moundsville, West Virginia, and Steubenville, Ohio, had to reset their watches seven times over 35 miles)." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_time_in_the_United_...
> with a little more flexibility for rural areas so they can stay on the same time as their closest major population center.
We can do that already. I remember when most of Indiana didn't follow DST. Businesses in Danville, Illinois, near the border followed Indiana time by changing the listed hours of operation during summer.
Speaking of Indiana, 'Attitudes began to change in the 1990s, as Indiana's time zone situation was seen as impeding the state's economic growth. Interstate travel and commerce were difficult as people wondered, "what time is it in Indiana?"' - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_Indiana
Having 12:00 noon be when the sun is highest makes these issues reappear.
how do you think this would work today with our interconnected world? we absolutely need standardized times or everything falls apart.
Why not have your own timezone based on where you are standing right now? Oh, right, because that's the opposite of universal (or at least worldwide).
One-hour shifts are manageable. One-minute shifts between population centers are not. Your meeting would start at precisely 8:03:38, your time. The business you are calling would close its doors 13 minutes before 5 pm.