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Comment by encoderer | Hacker News Reader

While some studies have indicated that adolecents would benefit from starting classes later in the day, I don't believe it's the silver bullet that you believe it is.

I'm 27, and I quoted that when I was in High School. But the truth is, I seldom was wound-down and in bed by 9 or 10 PM. I was irresponsible with my bed time. All my friends were the same.

I think you would be surprised at how much of the "misery" you and your peers are self-imposing. Do your homework when you get home, skip the Daily Show, shut off the computer by 9PM, and in bed by 10. I understand you'll think "easier said than done" but if you're truly miserable, take some responsibility for it!

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I think you would be surprised at how much of the "misery" you and your peers are self-imposing.

It's a pity the article is so long, because otherwise you might have encountered this sentence before composing a reply:

It won't be enough to demand an early hour for going to bed. If you ban the late evening Internet surfing, you will just swap a dose of evening education for an idle tossing and turning in bed.

You can't necessarily change your biological clock by an effort of will, even if you know exactly what you are doing -- which few people do. Your biological clock has a "mind" of its own. No matter how much "responsibility" you take for your schedule, and how much intelligence and full-spectrum lighting you apply to the problem, you may find yourself unable to be optimally awake at 7am. Especially if you are a teenager.

Meanwhile, I'm afraid that everything about this reply rubs me the wrong way. It is a textbook example of its kind [1], and it illustrates why broken designs persist for decade upon decade. School day starts too early for the typical young person's biological clock? We survived it, so should you! Third-shift workers causing accidents at 3am? Your grandpa worked third shift and survived with 80% of his fingers intact; so should you! Medical interns forced to work continuous shifts of 24 hours or more, even though studies have shown that they therefore make avoidable errors that harm patients? We survived it, so should you!

It's so much easier to instruct the victim on coping techniques than it is to contemplate changing the system that it becomes a reflex: You poke an adult, and out pops a sanctimonious lecture.

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[1] The world would be a better place if every text editor came with an alarm that rang every time someone typed the word peers. ("Hi! Microsoft Word has noticed that you sound just like your mom! Can Clippy help you with that?")

The trouble I see here is you're equating a propensity for high school kids to push the envelope on _everything_ with medical residents and shift workers.

Sanctimonious lecturing? I think you need more time in the field. Stop by any house with kids on a Friday night about 2300 and you'll see kids and adolescents alike dozing off, barely able to keep their heads up. When bed is suggested they sit up a little straighter and protest "I'm not tired."

What you missed in my original post (somehow, it was only a paragraph) is that I spent 4 years in high school quoting these sleep studies. Just like I spent 4 years quoting the Tinker decision, and debating Hazelwood.

But the truth is that staying out past curfew and putting my homework off until the last possible second and staying up to watch Conan and the Daily Show had absolutely NOTHING to do with my "biological clock." It was me, dozing off, and snapping to, my backbone stiff, saying "I'm ok, i'm not tired."

I got a head start on you, so I spent six years in school condemning Hazelwood and other criminally unconstitutional decisions, but what's more important are all the years since. I didn't learn to justify eliminating the rights of "minors" for their age alone, like most people seem to. And, more to the point, I never "got used" to waking up before 7 am in school, because you don't get used to sleep deprivation. You just get less and less healthy.

Was I perfectly responsible with my sleep time, doing of homework, etc., in school? Of course not. No one was. But that fact doesn't disprove that it's very difficult for most teenagers to follow the sleep schedule that American schools impose on them, and not just because they like to stay up late.

> ... I spent 4 years in high school quoting these sleep studies. Just like I spent 4 years quoting the Tinker decision, and debating Hazelwood.

What do Tinker/Hazelwood have to do with sleep? Or are you suggesting that siding with the Warren court decision was some kind of youthful indiscretion that thankfully the Rehnquist court backed off on? Though I was never a writer for a high school newspaper, I’m damn glad in CA we have some legitimate protection for student journalists and other student speech.

> But the truth is that staying out past curfew and putting my homework off [...] had absolutely NOTHING to do with my "biological clock."

How can you possibly assert this? First, your suggestion that you personally would have been fine if you’d just been less stubborn is counter-factual speculation. But second, your assertion is flat out contradicted by careful scientific research on the subject.

The whole “personal individual willpower is the only causal mechanism in the world” fallacy so pervasive in our society is really distressing to me.

It leads to terrible policy aimed at blaming the suffering rather than trying to help them achieve better outcomes. It’s great that poor diets; low-paying menial jobs; living in physically dangerous gang neighborhoods; getting stiffed out of insurance, pensions, etc. by unscrupulous businesses; deaths from “reckless driving” on poorly planned streets; getting imprisoned for decades for drug possession; getting straight-up scammed by not carefully reading through all the fine print on contracts intentionally designed such that their real implications differ substantially from the signatories’ mutual understanding; becoming pregnant as a teenager; catching a venereal disease; etc. etc. are subject to free will, and can be avoided by the smart and careful. But while that’s good advice for individuals trying to navigate the society – “do your work”, “get enough sleep and exercise”, “eat right”, “read the fine print” – it’s atrocious policy, because it ignores cognitive biases and intuitions and focuses only on narrowly construed technical responsibility. The result is inefficiency, poor health, unnecessary death, &c. &c. And we “teach” people to be “personally responsible” by condemning large numbers of them to bad outcomes, with nearly no evidence that any learning actually occurs as a result.

Most importantly, it eliminates empathy for those in rough situations. After all, if all outcomes are based mostly on personal merit, the down-on-their-luck must just deserve what they get.

Have you ever thought that I actually try your all your suggestion and more?

Oh lord, I don't even watch the Daily Show and Conan which seem to be mindless trite that other people watch. Heck I don't even know what these shows are.

Maybe those teenagers aren't really pushing the envelope. Maybe they just aren't made biologically to sleep at what the American system demand.

I took personal responsibility seriously, but don't ever expect me to do the biological impossible. Stop lecturing me about things that I already tried.

Please forgive me for responding to disagree with just one small part of a much larger post that I largely agree with, but I do feel compelled to reply regarding resident duty hours.

They are not simply long because the "old boys" had long hours; long hours give residents the chance to attain expert-level knowledge in only a few years. Do residents perform more poorly at the end of a shift on various tests of coordination and perhaps even judgment? I will concede that the answer is almost certainly, "Yes." Nevertheless, the evidence also suggests a tradeoff between medical errors due to sleep deprivation, and errors due to patient handoffs. Although there is now a big push for reducing resident duty hours and/or imposing "naptime" requirements, I suspect that will only make the dangers of handoffs even more evident and costly. Were I to be a patient, I would rather have a tired resident performing my surgery or drafting my treatment plan than a fresh resident who doesn't know me.

I'm sure that's the theory, but I'd really like to see the studies that prove it. Because against those studies are all those studies showing how important sleep is to memory formation, judgment, and cognition in general. And I find myself questioning what experience the interns are getting that doesn't involve judgment and memory formation. I'm having a hard time reconciling the two.

Additionally, if it actually worked that way, others would be doing it too. Doctors aren't the only people who would like to "attain expert-level knowledge in only a few years"!

Additionally, if it actually worked that way, others would be doing it too. Doctors aren't the only people who would like to "attain expert-level knowledge in only a few years"!

Maybe some of us are doing so indeliberately, by going on marathon code sprees and working 80 hours a week on startups.

> It's so much easier to instruct the victim on coping techniques than it is to contemplate changing the system that it becomes a reflex: You poke an adult, and out pops a sanctimonious lecture

Adults have the benefit of having thought as you did once, and then realizing through further experience why they were wrong.

Your comment is idiotic, yet understandable. If this sounds patronizing, that's understandable too. In 20 years you can amuse yourself by reading through your old internet rants.

This is an appeal to authority.

You have yet to demonstrate actual evidence of adults having the proper wisdom.

They only experience life only once after all.

A quick response to your comment above: "Oh lord, I don't even watch the Daily Show and Conan which seem to be mindless trite that other people watch. Heck I don't even know what these shows are."

A friendly warning: be wary of thinking yourself superior to others, especially intellectually, or assuming that calling something "mindless trite" (or tripe) makes you smart. What makes you smart is your own knowledge, not whether you can put various forms of entertainment down.

I'm a grad student and have been teaching freshmen for the last two years, some of whom have the know-it-all disease that you might be manifesting. If you haven't watched The Last Lecture: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo , do so. Notice the part where Randy tells the story of a mentor telling him, "If people perceive you as arrogant, you won't be able to accomplish what you want to accomplish." I would say the same to you, especially with comments like this:

"You have yet to demonstrate actual evidence of adults having the proper wisdom," which is a) vacuous and b) will make people think less of you.

Anyway, you'll likely perceive my comment as a) demonstrating my inferior intelligence or b) hostile to you. I make it anyway out of hope rather than expectation.

Why the hell are you trying to pyscho-analyze me? Alright, I made a dumb comment and will try to avoid that in the future.

"You have yet to demonstrate actual evidence of adults having the proper wisdom," which is a) vacuous and b) will make people think less of you.

Lady and gentleman, this is called an appeal to authority. Calling my comment stupid and dumb isn't addressing the issue. Demonstrate why it is dumb and stupid.

Anyway, you'll likely perceive my comment as a) demonstrating my inferior intelligence or b) hostile to you. I make it anyway out of hope rather than expectation.

Well I don't know what to think about this. I respect some adults, and know that I am not most experienced person in the world, don't know everything, and can be wrong. However, I won't be tricked by logical fallacies.

You know, I actually think beyond "HAHAHA, I am superior" steps sometime. Not alway successful mind you, but enough to meta-analyze myself.

An appeal to authority doesn't mean the claimed authority is wrong. It's just a weak (non-rigorous) form of argument.

I used to scoff at people who'd say "you can't understand X because you haven't lived it." I'd counter that a) I'm smart, and b) I have a good imagination. The thing is, as I've gained experience, I've realized that while I was correct in a very narrow sense, I was also missing something important.

If you're smart, and you can learn from experience, you're unlikely to think in 20 years as you do now, on a whole range of issues. It's a very interesting process to go through, if you're paying attention. The effect is real.

You appear to be replying to mechanicalfish, if I've got this indentation correct. If this is a high schooler's web site, my web browser is really screwing up the rendering of the photo: http://www.michaelfbooth.com/ (Link is from mechanicalfish's profile, so I don't think it's a secret.)

As for myself, I'm 31, and I echo mechanicalfish's message in toto. I'd also add that the Puritan impulse in America is alive and well, it just moved on to things other than religion. This is one of them. If sleeping the way your body tells you to sleep is less miserable than sleeping correctly, then we can be pretty sure that it's wrong; the surest sign of correct behavior is misery. That's not the whole story, it's only one component, but it's there.

Upvoted for your last paragraph, the final sentence in particular (sometimes I think it's helpful to know why a post is voted up or down).

> It won't be enough to demand an early hour for going to bed. If you ban the late evening Internet surfing, you will just swap a dose of evening education for an idle tossing and turning in bed.

You've just chosen to take this statement at face value. I don't believe it.

If you get enough exercise, don't drink caffeine in the evening, and don't over-stimulate yourself after 9pm, this doesn't happen, in general.

You may see the above restrictions as draconian, but actually, they're normal for a lot of people, and have been for a while.

You're attributing a lot to this biological clock, without supporting any of your claims, while these could equally be attributed to bad habits. Don't underestimate the power of training and habit.

Now, does society enable these bad habits? Yes! So maybe we should push-back on that, instead of changing school times.

It would be useful here to look at what happens in other cultures, with other schedules, although that would make it hard to control for the one change.

Your "rubs me the wrong way" argument is silly and immature. So what if it offends you? That doesn't make it wrong.

Finally, I say all this after having thought as you did, and getting bemused "why don't you go to bed earlier" responses from my parents. Guess what? When I finally did, I started to feel better in the morning. Duh.

re:mechanical_fish

I've made other replies in this thread, but I think I've just realized the core issue:

It's easier and less error-prone to change yourself than to change external organizations.

Over the years, this becomes more and more clear, which is perhaps why older people seem more conservative and cynical.

Essentially you're arguing: this thing is difficult for me and others to do, so let's change the system. You assume that this will be easier than changing yourself and that it will turn out as you expect.

Experience teaches that things almost always seem easier and less complicated at first. Experience teaches that again, and again, massive fuckups start with good intentions.

From a coding perspective: think of getting buy-in from various people and departments to change some process or piece of code, versus just doing it yourself. Which will be easier?

So, should we avoid all structural change? Of course not. It's just that as you get older you've experienced more of these good intention -> massive fuckup cycles, and become attuned to them.

So to summarize, I expect that your plan would have unintended consequences, and that it would be easier and ultimately more effective to just re-train yourself.

If you were seldom in bed by 10 and your friends were the same, it is unlikely that high school students today will do any different. Why not propose a solution based on what people generally do rather than telling them what they should do.

While some of the staying-up-lateness may be self imposed, my Google searches show that puberty brings with it a natural change in circadian rythym, which isn't something the teens can do much about.

http://www.healthcentral.com/sleep-disorders/caregiving-2708...

http://www.stanford.edu/~dement/adolescent.html

I went to a military boarding school. Plenty of exercise and fresh air. In bed and lights out by 10, with roaming patrols to ensure no noise was made. And still I tossed and turned until the early hours of the morning and was exhausted all day.

Every fourth week on Sunday there would be no enforced wakeup time. Without exception the entire house would sleep in till early afternoon at least.

When I was in high school, I frequently got home at 7:00pm or later. Or else, I got home at 3:00 and then had to go back for rehearsal or practice by 5:30.

The time I did have free would be broken up by changing clothes and eating dinner (making it if parents weren't home) and taking a dump.

I've now been working at a company for 3 years where hours have been flexible (core 10am-4pm). I use an alarm clock once a week (a 7:00 AM meeting on wednesday) which I only need about half the time. Yes, sometimes I have sleeping problems and I can trace them directly to choices and habits (often, though, they are really hard choices-- eg spend time with girlfriend or not). But it's still enormously easier to avoid chronic tiredness when you don't get stuck in a bad-sleep cycle where you can't fall asleep at night and get forced out of bed every morning before the sun comes up.

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