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United States Stats Idle

70% of Americans Hate Daylight Saving Time (inquirer.com) 231

Posted by EditorDavid from the hour-losing-time dept.
"America is approaching one of its most contentious hours," writes the Phildadelphia Inquirer, "and officially, it's one that doesn't exist." According to the National Conference of State Legislators, lawmakers in 32 states are considering bills that would change the current system of splitting the year into about eight months of daylight time and the rest, standard. "It's been a hot issue," said Jim Reed, an NCSL official. And it's getting hotter, he added. Every year more state lawmakers are considering changing the system.

The preponderance are pushing for year-round daylight time, although Congress has forbidden states from doing so. Pennsylvania has four different proposed time-change bills, and three of those essentially endorse year-round daylight time. Yet, if the issue were put to a national primary, all-standard, all-the-time would win decisively, according to a poll conducted last year. More than 70% of those surveyed said, Please, stop with the changes, period...

DST critics have pointed to studies pointing to possible connections to an increase in heart disease when the clocks go up, and the impacts of disrupted body rhythms resulting from disrupted sleep patterns. Proponents say later sunsets mean more Vitamin D and more opportunities to luxuriate in the later twilights.
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70% of Americans Hate Daylight Saving Time More

70% of Americans Hate Daylight Saving Time

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  • obedient consumers (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymouse Cowtard ( 6211666 ) on Sunday March 08, 2020 @12:39AM (#59807422) Homepage
    They would much prefer daylight spending

  • Meh. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ktakki ( 64573 ) on Sunday March 08, 2020 @12:49AM (#59807436) Homepage Journal

    I don't hate DST, I hate standard time.

    Getting up when it's dark doesn't faze me, but the early nights here at 42 -71 take a toll.

    k.

    • We could always just adjust standard business schedules accordingly. Instead of the 9-5 workday, we just have a normal 8-4 workday.

      The farmers who benefit from it can just have a summer schedule and a winder schedule.

      DST is just out of date, and not reflective of the current economy.

      Heck, I would be happy just working with GMT time and no timezones. For those on EST, you can go to work at 12:00 GMT. Being that we need to work globally it makes coordinating times available a little easier as we don't need

  • I don't care either way, it makes absolutely no difference to me in any sense.

  • One thing about Slashdot hasn’t changed (Score:5, Funny)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Sunday March 08, 2020 @12:59AM (#59807456)

    Twice a year, we can count on a reasoned, calm discussion on the topic of daylight saving time.

    • Re:One thing about Slashdot hasn’t changed (Score:5, Informative)

      by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Sunday March 08, 2020 @01:05AM (#59807470)

      Also the title is wrong. 31% of respondents wanted permanent daylight saving time, while 29% wanted to keep switching back and forth. 40% wanted permanent standard time.

      Incorrect titles is another thing about Slashdot which hasn’t changed.

      • The 70% includes the 31% plus the 40%. What they mean is that 70% of people don't like the switching part, which is what most people mean by Daylight Savings Time. If you switch to Summer Time permanently, you won't refer to that as "DST" anymore, it'll just be "the time".

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by fred911 ( 83970 )

        And about 90% of the targeted readers of the article would prefer to live closer to the equador. No one fuckin wants to retire in a location in the northern hemi above 25 deg.

        Remember: it's always better to swear than to shiver.

      • The title is correct. 29% want to keep daylight saving time (the practice of switching between 2 different time zones - dubbed "Standard" and "Daylight" Time in North America - depending on the time of year), while 71% want to abolish DST and stick to one time zone or the other. The 71% that wants to get rid of DST includes the 40% that want to stick with Standard Time and the 31% that wants to keep Daylight Time, but TFA doesn't mention how strongly they care about which.

        DST is that practice of switching b

  • How to fail (Score:4, Insightful)

    by zkiwi34 ( 974563 ) on Sunday March 08, 2020 @01:02AM (#59807462)

    Be in favour of DST. In any form.

  • Seems artificially low.

  • Especially in the north, early raisers would have to tolerate one more hour of darkness in the morning.
    E.g. in New York, sun would rise only after 8 DST in the morning, and would still set at 5:30 DST in the afternoon, in December. For Anchorage, the day would even be only 11 am to 5 pm.
    In the south, e.g. Miami, sun would at least set only after 6:30 pm DST, but is that small difference in the evening really worth it?

    • However, in farming, the clock switch affects animals too. Cows get used to being milked at the same time every day, they start to freak out when the clocks change.

      • Re: DST in winter is a bad idea (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Malc ( 1751 ) on Sunday March 08, 2020 @02:47AM (#59807562)

        If this were a serious problem, farmers would either ignore the time change or implement it incrementally over a period of days or weeks.

      • Farmers don’t have a problem with their animals; they are already on that schedule. They have a problem with going into town and buying stuff.
        • I'll say again, lived rural for 20+ years next door to a dairy farmer. No, they have no problem going into town to buy stuff. That's done midday, once morning chores are over.
      • Lived next to a dairy farmer for years. The cows didn't freak out because he didn't change his schedule. Dairy farmers are more concerned with their cows than what time it is.

    • As a NY-er I hate standard time. If we stayed on it year round we'll have sunlight at 4:30 AM in the summer. As it stands now, we have darkness at 4:15 PM in the winter, and it's depressing leaving work knowing the day is over. And for all the "herp-derp change ur schedule" asswipes, even the most reasonable company out there isn't going to be thrilled at all their employees working 6:30AM-3PM. (not to mention public transit schedules don't even start that early).

  • So, just do what most of Arizona does: No DST at all:
    https://www.timeanddate.com/ti... [timeanddate.com]

  • I have an idea (Score:4, Insightful)

    by slashmydots ( 2189826 ) on Sunday March 08, 2020 @02:22AM (#59807538)
    Make the time what time is ACTUALLY IS and if people don't like when the sun rises or sets they can move or shut the hell up.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The problem is that everyone has to be on a syncronized schedule. If we didn't all have to turn up at work at 9 AM and leave at 5 PM a lot of the reasons why we hate DST and why some people want DST would go away.

    • Re:I have an idea (Score:5, Funny)

      by Rob Lister ( 4174831 ) on Sunday March 08, 2020 @05:39AM (#59807794)

      Make the time what time is ACTUALLY IS...

      My New Years resolution was to not ridicule anyone ever again. So I'm going to cut this post a little short.

      • So, noon is when the sun is due-south at whatever location you're at? I'd have to get my watch-reset everytime I went east or west...

    • What DST looks like to me:

      "I want to go to work one hour earlier (relative to sunlight), so I can have more sunlight after work. But my employer won't let me change my working hours, so I want the government to change the definition of hours for everyone."

      Also, these arguments are always about leisure time after work. Nobody seems to worry about being more tired at work, about the decrease in productivity and increase in work related accidents, for example.

  • The preponderance are pushing for year-round daylight time, although Congress has forbidden states from doing so.

    Whatâ(TM)s to stop a state keeping the time change but at the same time simply adjust the hours of government and public schools, etc by one hour? I.e. effectively assuming a fixed time?

    • Whatâ(TM)s to stop a state keeping the time change but at the same time simply adjust the hours of government and public schools, etc by one hour? I.e. effectively assuming a fixed time?

      Because millions of commuters and employees working for thousands of companies would need to adjust their schedules to drop off and pick up kids from schools and daycares, coordinate opening times of banks and government offices, etc. Some organizations would change their schedules but others would not. It would be chaos twice a year.

      • More likely that a lot of businesses would also adjust their hours.

        • More likely that a lot of businesses would also adjust their hours.

          Some would. Some wouldn't. Many businesses have their schedules printed on signs, posted on websites, printed in menus and brochures. It would be too much hassle to change. But their employees would still need to deal with schools that start and end an hour earlier or later.

          If you want everyone to change, then that is no different than what we do now, except changing the clocks is easier.

  • Here we go again. (Score:3)

    by antdude ( 79039 ) on Sunday March 08, 2020 @03:15AM (#59807606) Homepage Journal

    Every time we change the times. Let's stay on daylight saving forever.

  • Limit it to summer only. "Spring forward" the Sunday before Memorial Day and "fall back" on the one before Labor Day. You still get the "extra" hour during the summer vacation months, but kids aren't going to school in the dark the rest of the year. And doing the changeover on those holiday weekends has the extra virtue of giving the body an extra day -- the holiday Monday -- to adjust, mitigating somewhat the health and accident-related hazards associated with changing the clocks.

    • Limit it to December only. Done.

      The "Summer" time works better year around, including the winter times. We don't care whether it's still dark when we go to work, but we absolutely need the sun to be still there when we get home.

      • I like that winter time is slowly being eroded. I propose the next increment be between the Thanksgiving and President's Day weekends.

    • If Home Depot can change their summer hours, schools can change their winter hours. And do it in increments. So if your school starts at 8:00am after Labor Day, move it back 15 minutes in October. Do that again in November and December, and your school day is starting at 9:00am for the shortest days of the year. A fifteen minute adjustment is no big whoop, and it doesn't involve an hour time change that is a PITA on computing systems that don't handle it well.

      Easy. Peasy. Lemon. Squeeze.

    • Why not just make it year round and not force kids to go to school at 7am? Or let kids go to school in the dark because it doesn't fucking matter.

      Good lord, I know some parents think the world needs to revolve around their kids, but in this case it's literally trying to dictate how we measure the revolution of the earth to better suit your kids.

  • If year-round DST is too much to bear, split the difference, eliminate DST, and move all US timezones 1/2 hour east (so "Eastern" would be UTC-4.5 year-round, "Pacific" would be UTC-7.5 year-round, etc). We'd still get most of the late-sunset benefits, but the period of super-late sunrises would only be 3-5 weeks.

    There's nothing that says timezones HAVE to be on one-hour boundaries. India, for example, merged its two former timezones into one that's a half hour ahead or behind the old ones.

  • I would be all for permanent DST, no time changes. This is, apparently, a popular opinion. What I didn't remember - and TFA points out - is that this was tried once, back in 1974, and people apparently hated it. Permanent DST would mean a much longer period in the Winter, where people go to work/school in the dark. OTOH, permanent standard time, means all that extra summer sunlight comes early in the morning, when most of us would prefer to have it in the evening.

    Maybe the real answer is that we all like to

    • Up north it was dark regardless of std vs daylight. You're supposed to be learning/working, not looking out the window at the sun/dark.
  • Corrections solicited...but last I left the citations on this was DST was war measure parity (between the world wars) to German policy and planned efficiency objectives.

    Critical readings of Gravity's Rainbow speculate Pynchon's identifying the necessity of "matching" the measures and metrics of fascism to win the war while suspecting the likelihood of its victors and their cultures of gained wealth to maintain any enforceable measures of productivity. He did so with "pornographic" passages and those were

  • This was tried before (Score:3)

    by weave ( 48069 ) on Sunday March 08, 2020 @07:01AM (#59807902) Journal

    Congress went to year round DST back in the 70s and people hated it so bad it only lasted one year.

    https://www.mercurynews.com/20... [mercurynews.com]

    Why would it be different this time?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Osgeld ( 1900440 )

      i dunno, there's a huge gap tween the 70's and today ... like most people bathe now (really look at any photo from the 70's and they are always wearing dirty clothes and sweaty)

    • DST is stupid and that proves it. Cancel DST now!
    • The northernmost latitudes have the largest variability in the length of a day over the course of a year. New York, Boston, Chicago, Seattle (and in the 1970s, Detroit). The rest of the country was just fine with it.

      The best fix is simple. If you are at a latitude where the time of sunrise varies considerably throughout the year, change your business/school hours to match sunrise. Don't drag the rest of the country along on an unnecessary (for them) time change just so you can maintain your business/

  • Put idiots in charge and this is what you get:
    - You know in the summer we should take advantage of the extra daylight in the morning, get people up earlier, they'll need less artificial light at night too.
    - Sure, we could have summer schedules for work/school, it is quite common already for stores etc in many areas, we could expand it.
    - That's stupid, we have to, like, print new schedules and stuff. I know, we'll just CHANGE TIME ITSELF!

    And that's when a great disturbance was felt, as if millions of softwar

  • ... anything actually done. We are lazy creatures of habit.

  • Google "70% of Americans..." and you'll find that 70% of Americans want/know/don't know a lot of really stupid things.

  • >"70% of Americans Hate Daylight Saving Time"

    Nope. Most of us hate *CHANGING* time. I bet 70% of Americans would be very happy moving to DST (summer time) and just KEEPING IN THERE ALL YEAR ROUND.

    Even with DST, it is still dark in the typical morning, and most people would rather have additional, usable daylight in the evening during the cold months, which is far more useful.

  • Daylight savings is not completely a bad idea, I like that extra hour in the evening when the weather is warm. But I believe we should all be using standard time, all year. It should be noon when the sun is directly overhead (more or less). But I think it would also be a good idea for businesses, government offices, schools, etc. to shift their hours of operation by an hour in the spring and fall, on a VOLUNTARY basis. There would be a RECOMMENDED date to do so. Possibly even make it coincide with a ho

  • But then, most of the clocks I rely on in 2020 automatically make the change for me: iPhone, iPad, bedside and kitchen clock, desktop computer, kitchen cable set top box and TiVo DVR....

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Massachusetts is also trying to cheat and get themselves moved into Atlantic Standard Time, same effect but less congressional effort required.

  • At least until I discovered my alarm clock didn't match my tablet's clock. Can we just dump this waste of time please?

  • Daylight savings time would be great in the summer months around here. That way, it would not be light at 4:30am.

    Link it to the school schedule. People are always saying teenages need an extra hour of sleep. Fall back the week school starts. Spring forward when school ends.

    Right now we have less standard time than daylight time. That is wacked.

  • When questioned further as to why, the vast majority of them said, "leave my damned poll alone". In other words, I wonder if they really made it clear to all those people that "standard time" is the one where it gets dark early in Winter.

  • Why don't we simply make work and school hours relative to sunrise.

    Would there then be some weird issues to sort out, yes.  But after that, it wouldn't matter what"time" the sun rise.
  • ... that nearly 100% dislike the obligatory Daylight Saving Time thread that appears twice a year here.

  • I don't care about DST per se. It's the change I can do without. Pick one and stick with it.

    People seem to want permanent DST, i.e. UTC-7, but the sun would still set at 1700 local time in December. After rising at 0900 local. What good is that?

    ...laura

  • I wonder how many extra people will die from coronavirus going into the severe form, thanks to the stresses of the time change - both now and in the fall.

  • Permanently get rid of it. (Score:4)

    by twocows ( 1216842 ) on Monday March 09, 2020 @09:00AM (#59810688)
    I'm going to counter the "leave it on year round" crowd. For consistency's sake, it makes more sense to turn it off year round. Outside of the US, DST isn't a thing, period. Time zones are an international standard and in most places they extend somewhat uniformly from the top of the globe to the bottom in little sections (there are exceptions, but most places fit the rule rather than buck it). EST is in the little slice that's -5 off of GMT, PST is -8, etc. DST changes this so that we're not in alignment with where we should be -- EDT is -4 despite being in the -5 slice, PDT is -7 despite being in the -8 slice. This is confusing and inconsistent.

    Rather than unnecessarily deviating from the international standard, we should just go with the international standard. Turn DST off permanently. Nobody else does it, so neither should we.

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