Don’t care, just pick one and don’t change it every six months.
This is by far the more important aspect
Humans are routine oriented creatures, introducing an arbitrary hour deficit in sleep once a year has measurable and fairly profound effects on physical and mental health. Sure, it can be planned for, but circadian rhythms are hard to mess with for a lot of people and going to bed an hour earlier isn’t always an option
Cool. But stay on dst anyhow. It’s way nicer to never have it be dark at 5pm.
Spring forward and leave it there. In the fall it currently gets dark at 5 pm. It’s depressing to get off work and not have any daylight to enjoy and run errands. It’s also dangerous because tired drivers are coming home in a dark rush hour.
Word. I couldn’t care less whether the sun rises while I’m on the bus to work or while I’m getting my first coffee at work. Have to wake up in the dark either way. But whether or not i get that one hour of daylight after work makes a world of a difference in my mental health.
So, now the tired drivers are driving to work in the dark. I don’t see any solution making a real difference. There’s less day in the winter. Any solution at all will piss off 3/4s of the population.
There’s usually 8 hours of sunlight during the day on the shortest day of the year, a bit more or less depending on latitude, but not by a lot. Make those 8 hours 9-5. Congrats, you’ve solved the problem, the average day will have a bit to a lot of light before and after the standard work day.
Split the difference by adding 30 minutes in the spring and then leave it there permanently.
I love that we don’t change here in Japan (I grew up in the US), but I do wish our time zone had sunrise a bit later (it rises at like 4am in eastern Japan in summer). Splitting Japan into two timezones would also probably be necessary (maybe even more for the minor islands. Yonaguni is almost Taiwan)
The 04:30 sunrise was a hilarious thing to get used to. But summer sunsets are not inconvenient and winter sunsets feel the same as they were in the US
Growing up in south Texas, I was more bothered by it still being daylight at 9PM during the summers.
I don’t mind keeping the whole country within a single time zone. It’s never going to be perfect for everybody, but it’s close enough.
The whole switching clocks thing is a mindfuck in Texas. Summer it’s daylight at 9 pm. Winter it’s dark at 5 pm. That’s a four hour spread exacerbated by the time change.
I work outside doing farming and it sucks to have to wake up at like 3am in summer to not die to the heat (and then work my other job after which can run later)
Summer outdoor jobs are moving to the night shift thanks to climate change. Road work had already shifted to overnight to cut down on traffic problems during construction.
https://www.eater.com/2023/10/12/23906597/labor-farm-nighttime-harvests-protect-workers-heat-risk
