Should we continue to change time twice a year?

[zapatos]

10 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

I sincerely doubt it, for the stated reasons.

 

Give people a little more credit. When my wife and I had young ones there were not many daycare centers but we figured out how to make things work.

It is relatively easy and common to find temporary daycare before school. Most schools offer it in-house already.

10 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

What if parents are not the only people who have a problem with DST. I'm not a parent, and I hate it. Lots of other people are affected. 

Then they have a problem with it. As I said before, no matter what you do it won't be easy for everyone. I have no idea why people think there is a way to set the clocks  that is ideal for everyone. 

10 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

What I'm wondering now is why you are so staunch in its defence?

I couldn't give a rat's ass if we have DST. All I did was make a suggestion on how to address the issue for children if DST continues. How in the world can that be interpreted as a "staunch defense" of DST?!?!

Edited March 14 by zapatos

[Peterkin]

39 minutes ago, zapatos said:

I couldn't give a rat's ass if we have DST. All I did was make a suggestion on how to address the issue for children if DST continues. How in the world can that be interpreted as a "staunch defense" of DST?!?!

Sorry - that's just the way it sounded. Personally, I think the idea is way past its sell-by date.

[Peterkin]

11 hours ago, zapatos said:

Give people a little more credit. When my wife and I had young ones there were not many daycare centers but we figured out how to make things work.

What would be the point? Besides the extra cost, which many people can't afford, the children wouldn't get that hour of sleep: they would have to get up even earlier, be rousted out, rushed through morning chores, and trucked off to daycare in the dark, in time for the parents to get to work after dropping them off - so they're tired even before school begins. What have they gained by eliminating DST in schools?  

In any case, why should parents and children be required to make sacrifices for the convenience of WWI industry?

Just stop screwing with the time of day and let each business and school district decide on their optimal hours of operation.  

Edited March 14 by Peterkin

[zapatos]

51 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

What would be the point? Besides the extra cost, which many people can't afford, the children wouldn't get that hour of sleep: they would have to get up even earlier, be rousted out, rushed through morning chores, and trucked off to daycare in the dark, in time for the parents to get to work after dropping them off - so they're tired even before school begins. What have they gained by eliminating DST in schools?  

 

Again. No solution is optimal for everyone. If there is a change it will benefit some but not all.

Right now all kids have to get up early, whether a parent has the flexibility for a later start or not. If you have a later start, some kids will still have to get up at the same time, but some kids will get to sleep longer.

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Besides the extra cost,

What extra cost? You traded an hour of daycare in the morning for an hour of daycare in the afternoon.

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they would have to get up even earlier,

Why? They go in at the same time but school start an hour later.

[dimreepr]

11 hours ago, Peterkin said:

Sorry - that's just the way it sounded. Personally, I think the idea is way past its sell-by date.

If it ain't broke, why fix it?

The only way it affects me is, two Sundays a year I'll wake up, either a bit earlier or a bit later than I expected...😉

[StringJunky]

3 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

If it ain't broke, why fix it?

Because it breaks people, like me. SAD is a real thing, then someone comes along and magnifies it with DST . I don't give shit which one is used, but it would be nice to see a smooth, natural transition through the seasons. It is psychologically terrible for a lot of people. My brother goes to Goa to soften the blow.

[dimreepr]

1 minute ago, StringJunky said:

Because it breaks people, like me. SAD is a real thing, then someone comes along and magnifies it with DST . I don't give shit which one is used, but it would be nice to see a smooth, natural transition through the seasons. It is psychologically terrible for a lot of people. My brother goes to Goa to soften the blow.

That's a good reason, thanks for the info...

[Moontanman]

34 minutes ago, zapatos said:

Again. No solution is optimal for everyone. If there is a change it will benefit some but not all.

Right now all kids have to get up early, whether a parent has the flexibility for a later start or not. If you have a later start, some kids will still have to get up at the same time, but some kids will get to sleep longer.

What extra cost? You traded an hour of daycare in the morning for an hour of daycare in the afternoon.

Why? They go in at the same time but school start an hour later.

After reading several posts in this thread I wonder how many commenting have kid schedules, and or work schedules, I may be misreading this but everyone does understand that the time changes for everyone not just the school kids... right? The main problem with dst is that the sun pays little to no attention to human clocks, while time changes do concern us and they should, I worked for DuPont, rotating shifts, I changed my schedule every 7 days and the only way I could deal with it was to live like I was on the same schedule as everyone else or to be more precise I had to live like my shift was always 8 to 4, I ate, slept, and worked as though I was always on day shift. I slept, ate, and worked as though every day started at 8am even though it could be 4pm or 12am. 

If the sun followed DST there would be no problem and no conflicts other than the ones we already have, if not for the Sun's lack of cooperation shifting back an hour should have no problems.  Actually changing the time of school, work, or other activities would create problems for everyone... initially anyway.   

If we really wanted to maximize daylight activities then we would have to actually change the time we start our days and probably on a sliding scale as the seasons progressed. In the past we changed our work schedules with the sun, we got up with the sun and went inside when the sun went down if not go directly to bed, we knew the day length changed as the seasons progressed but we changed with it instead of trying to change the time. 

It seems to me at this point that DST as we know it now is the lesser of two evils in trying to fix this "problem" all the talk of starting school late or changing work schedules or relying on neighbors to take care of your kids is just not tenable in the real world. 

11 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

Because it breaks people, like me. SAD is a real thing, then someone comes along and magnifies it with DST . I don't give shit which one is used, but it would be nice to see a smooth, natural transition through the seasons. It is psychologically terrible for a lot of people. My brother goes to Goa to soften the blow.

I feel you dude, SAD is a big part of winter life for me, I feel like I need to crawl in a hole and sleep for weeks... Goa? 

Edited March 14 by Moontanman

[swansont]

13 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

After reading several posts in this thread I wonder how many commenting have kid schedules, and or work schedules, I may be misreading this but everyone does understand that the time changes for everyone not just the school kids... right?

Kids waiting in the dark for a bus doesn’t present the same risk as an adult on their commute.

32 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

SAD is a real thing, then someone comes along and magnifies it with DST

How does that magnify it? The idea behind DST is that it better aligns daylight hours with when people are awake. Shouldn’t that tend to mitigate SAD? 

[CharonY]

This position paper cites a couple of research outcomes regarding health impact of DST https://doi.org/10.1177/0748730419854197. The main argument is based on misalignment between body clock and what they call social clock.

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Local and national governments around the world are currently considering the elimination of the annual switch to and from Daylight Saving Time (DST). As an international organization of scientists dedicated to studying circadian and other biological rhythms, the Society for Research on Biological Rhythms (SRBR) engaged experts in the field to write a Position Paper on the consequences of choosing to live on DST or Standard Time (ST). 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.

 

[Moontanman]

38 minutes ago, swansont said:

Kids waiting in the dark for a bus doesn’t present the same risk as an adult on their commute.

I wasn't trying to say it was, but adults do have to adjust their lives to the school times and this is the real driver to this. Adults have fewer options, employers are not particularly welcoming to changing their business hours to make it easier for adults to get their kids safely to school. Parents are expected to change their lives to suit employers than the other way around. Yes some jobs can be done from home but most cannot and most blue collar workers are expected to change their lives to suit their employers. 

This question is more complex than most think, IMHO DST is more trouble than it's worth, in the summer if I want more daylight I'll simply get up earlier, I love to surf fish, getting down to the beach, setting up my equipment  just before daybreak is an option I use with some regularity. If you are not free to decide what time you start your day then regular time would seem to be a good guide. Anytime you try to change something everyone relies on you will piss off some of the people to please some of the people. 

[StringJunky]

3 hours ago, swansont said:

Kids waiting in the dark for a bus doesn’t present the same risk as an adult on their commute.

How does that magnify it? The idea behind DST is that it better aligns daylight hours with when people are awake. Shouldn’t that tend to mitigate SAD? 

Going from DST to GMT is the killer for me.  As I've said, I don't care which standard is used. 

[TheVat]

7 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

Going from DST to GMT is the killer for me.  As I've said, I don't care which standard is used. 

You Limeys and your fancy pants Universal Time time zone!  😀

Standard Time works well for me and the family - none of us get excited about rising an hour earlier in early March.  I would lean toward permanent ST, after digesting all the research presented here.  Sorry, golfers.

[swansont]

3 hours ago, Moontanman said:

I wasn't trying to say it was, but adults do have to adjust their lives to the school times and this is the real driver to this. Adults have fewer options, employers are not particularly welcoming to changing their business hours to make it easier for adults to get their kids safely to school. Parents are expected to change their lives to suit employers than the other way around. Yes some jobs can be done from home but most cannot and most blue collar workers are expected to change their lives to suit their employers. 

I think kids have fewer options. They don’t get to vote and they can’t negotiate a flexible schedule; they just have to do what the grownups decide. Some jobs have flexible hours. Schools, especially for younger kids, not so much.

Though I think this is mitigated somewhat by a trend toward parents dropping off/picking up kids from school, though my limited anecdotal data is for middle-class parents (and leaning toward upper m-c) which also triggers my feeling that these kids are spoiled rotten for not having to ride a school bus, or walk uphill both ways 

Quote

This question is more complex than most think, IMHO DST is more trouble than it's worth, in the summer if I want more daylight I'll simply get up earlier, I love to surf fish, getting down to the beach, setting up my equipment  just before daybreak is an option I use with some regularity. If you are not free to decide what time you start your day then regular time would seem to be a good guide. Anytime you try to change something everyone relies on you will piss off some of the people to please some of the people. 

I hated DST with a passion because I used to get up at ~4 AM, which meant trying to get to sleep while it was light out and people out and about making noise, for a couple of month of the year.

Even in retirement, it throws me for a loop. Just not quite as much as it used to, without as much of a structured schedule

1 hour ago, StringJunky said:

Going from DST to GMT is the killer for me.  As I've said, I don't care which standard is used. 

Who uses GMT anymore? It’s UTC, which is completely different (that is, almost exactly the same as far as the average person is concerned)

[Peterkin]

7 hours ago, zapatos said:

No solution is optimal for everyone. If there is a change it will benefit some but not all.

Who would have to make what sacrifice if it were discontinued? 

7 hours ago, zapatos said:

Why? They go in at the same time but school start an hour later.

They get up earlier to allow for travel time to daycare, the parents have the extra burden of waking them even earlier and taking them to daycare, then traveling to work. And you can't substitute an hour in the morning for an hour in the afternoon - it's a completely different situation. The school starting later is not zero improvement; it's a -2 improvement.

7 hours ago, dimreepr said:

If it ain't broke, why fix it?

Because it's been broke for decades. It's completely unnecessary, serves no useful purpose and upsets people.  This isn't a question of interfering with something natural; it's a question of whether we should stop interfering with nature. 

 

 

[zapatos]

5 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

Who would have to make what sacrifice if it were discontinued? 

They get up earlier to allow for travel time to daycare, the parents have the extra burden of waking them even earlier and taking them to daycare, then traveling to work. And you can't substitute an hour in the morning for an hour in the afternoon - it's a completely different situation. The school starting later is not zero improvement; it's a -2 improvement.

I surrender. Everything I said was wrong. You are right about everything. Kids should not start school later as it is bad for everyone.

[StringJunky]

3 hours ago, TheVat said:

You Limeys and your fancy pants Universal Time time zone!  😀

Standard Time works well for me and the family - none of us get excited about rising an hour earlier in early March.  I would lean toward permanent ST, after digesting all the research presented here.  Sorry, golfers.

If ST is what experts say, I'll take  that. Makes sense really because evolution.  3 billion years of tidal clock and sun clock have pretty much nailed us where we are by the looks of it..

Edited March 14 by StringJunky

[Peterkin]

14 hours ago, zapatos said:

Kids should not start school later as it is bad for everyone.

Unless everyone else also starts later, yes.

[npts2020]

It is surprising to me that the insurance industry hasn't managed to kill DST yet. Whether the actual figure is 20% or not outside of Saskatchewan, the trend does seem pretty universal.

https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/us/risk-management/news/daylight-saving-time-sparks-20-surge-in-claims-46791.aspx

"In fact, collision data from 2014 shows a marked 20 per cent surge in claims in the days after the time change."