Comment by throw0101a | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throw0101a | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

To add to the pile-on, the position papers of various sleep and chronobiology societies:

* https://srbr.org/advocacy/daylight-saving-time-presskit/

* https://old.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/dq2nv3/

* 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...

> 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...

The researchers may be completely correct, but this is still bikeshedding. It would be a grave mistake to stick with DST/ST switching just because permanent ST is better than permanent DST.

> If we want to improve human health, we should not fight against our body clock

You know what is really fighting against the body's clock? Suddenly shifting your normal wakeup time in any direction by an hour. No matter what your baseline sleep quality is, no matter if your body prefers getting up when it's light or dark, shifting that wakeup time by an hour with no prep will negatively affect your sleep quality.

The effort to abandon DST and move to ST (as positive as it may be) should be separated from the effort to abandon DST/ST switching. If this bill gets rejected in the House because people are so caught up in the DST/ST debate that they ignore the almost unanimous research conclusion that sudden sleep-schedule shifts are bad for most people -- that would just be a complete failure of policy.

This is like arguing over whether jogging or biking is better for your joints when the status quo is sitting on a couch. For most people, regardless of whether ST is better than DST for them, forcibly breaking their sleep schedule is the worst outcome.

>> the advantages of permanent ST outweigh switching to DST annually or permanently.

So they picked the wrong one.

According to the folks that study this, that is correct.

So frustrating. Why would they pick this one?

I live in Alberta, Canada, and enough people want to get rid of the time zone switching that it came to a vote last fall. I couldn't believe the question on the ballot was do you want to go to permanent DST, instead of asking if we wanted to go to permanent standard time. It was snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

The people voted against the change, but I really think they would've voted for permanent standard time if it had been an option.

The big cities in Alberta look to be fairly far west in a timezone so that may have something to do with it. The further east you are the better DST looks on average. And that far north, I can see getting at least somewhat light mornings earlier in the year being a plus.

> So frustrating. Why would they pick this one?

Just look at all the other threads in this discussion: "I want it brighter when I leave the office".

It's like the lightbulb was never invented or something. We haven't had "dark" for decades:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_pollution

So we don't have dark pre-sunrise mornings either, thanks to the lightbulb?

Never mind light pollution doesn't apply if you're trying to get into outdoor activities after work.

>Why would they pick this one?

Money. [1]

On the upside, local or state governments might be able to alter their time zone to essentially observe permanent Standard Time.

>Seasonal observation of DST was first enacted in the US during World Wars I and II, as an attempt to conserve fuel. The practice was unpopular and promptly repealed after each war; however, lobbyists from the petroleum industry lobbied to restore DST, as they had noticed it actually increased fuel consumption. Petroleum lobbyists joined with lobbyists from golf and candy corporations in the 1980s to form the National Daylight Saving Time Coalition, and they have twice since succeeded in extending the length of DST's observation from six months to seven in 1986, and again to eight months in 2005. The observation of DST has also been found to increase residential energy costs and pollution costs by several million dollars per year.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_time_observation_in_...

Whoa. That's so devious.

I admit I haven't read all of these links, but just thinking this through logically, whether we are on DST or ST permanently shouldn't matter one way or another. I can get how shifting back and forth twice a year can have an impact, but just not following the logic on why ST > DST.

The delta is only which number shows on the clock each hour. Whether we choose to start school/work/whatever commitment at 7am, 8am, 9am, etc. shouldn't be coupled to ST or DST.

That is, if we want to start work when the sun rises (on average), there's nothing stopping us from doing that, particularly if it's proven to be more healthy.

That alone makes me question, a bit, the validity of these studies.

But again, maybe there's more context that I'm missing -- which is why I'm posting here, in case there's context that would explain this.

> just thinking this through logically, whether we are on DST or ST permanently shouldn't matter one way or another

It's observational, empirical research. The results are valid whether you understand them or not.

Seeking to understand the research is still a valid endeavor. We shouldn't blindly accept research without understanding it's implications and trying to suss out the reason for the observed results.

> We shouldn't blindly accept research without understanding it's implications and trying to suss out the reason for the observed results.

You're not wrong, but (e.g.) this paper has several dozen references, stating at the end:

> In summary, the scientific literature strongly argues against the switching between DST and Standard Time and even more so against adopting DST permanently. The latter would exaggerate all the effects described above beyond the simple extension of DST from approximately 8 months/year to 12 months/year (depending on country) since body clocks are generally even later during winter than during the long photoperiods of summer (with DST) (Kantermann et al., 2007; Hadlow et al., 2014, 2018; Hashizaki et al., 2018). Perennial DST increases SJL prevalence even more, as described above.

* https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2019.0094...

If you want to fact check the folks who have this as their careers, you're welcome to pick up studying circadian rhythms as a hobby. But most of us ain't got time for that, so I'm willing to trust the experts and move on with my life.

We just spent two years having to put up with folks being arm chair epidemiologist with COVID, do we have to do it all over again with chronobiologists?

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronobiology

> We just spent two years having to put up with folks being arm chair epidemiologist with COVID, do we have to do it all over again with chronobiologists?

If COVID taught me anything, it's to question the experts. Only in the past half a year or so have the "experts" come around to what the layperson had been saying in 2020.

Presumably because opening/working hours remain the same by the clock when we switch (or when you are on the edge of a zone as in some of the studies) rather than adjust, and they are currently more optimal for one of those.

At any rate, I also strongly suspect it doesn't matter which one is picked but only as long as everything else is adjusted around it.

The reason that ST > DST is that bedtime is largely influenced by the sun, yet wake time is largely influenced by work / school. When sunset is pushed back an hour, people get less sleep, and for kids this is massively detrimental to their education. India is doing this experiment in real time because they only have one time zone. Kids in the western half, where the sun sets later, have much worse educational outcomes, and as you move east the education outcomes get better.

The sun sets where I am at ~430pm during the winter in standard time. I don't really see how having the sun set at 530pm instead would have a substantial effect on bedtime. There is so little sunlight in the winter that work/social life are what drive wakeup and bedtime. I imagine this isn't as true in India. Is there any research that accounts for the actual length of daylight available?

Talking about the whole year, not just the winter. In Summer later sunset affects bedtime. In winter later sunrise affects rise time.

The proposal will only change the winter though, we are already only on standard time for 4 months of the year.

We're talking about whether permanent ST is better than permanent DST, not DST switching vs not switching.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com