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Yes! I've always thought that we have it backwards. Why do we give ourselves more daylight in the summer when the days are naturally longer? If anything we s

Yes! I've always thought that we have it backwards. Why do we give ourselves more daylight in the summer when the days are naturally longer? If anything we should move them forward in the winter when we actually need it. That or eliminate it altogether, keeping "daylight-time" the default.

svantana 9y ago
The amount of daylight is not changed by setting clocks. The point is to shift daylight hours away from "sleeping time", but still not having to get up when it's dark. The ideal daylight savings would be to synchronize clocks with sunrise, so that sunrise always occurs when it's time to get up (7 AM or whatever). Here in Sweden, where the length of the day varies from 6 to 18 hours, DST is really useful.
- kgwgk 9y ago
  Of course the other option is to get up with the sunrise. Nobody forces you to sleep until 7AM or whatever.
- jonknee 9y ago
  > The ideal daylight savings would be to synchronize clocks with sunrise, so that sunrise always occurs when it's time to get up (7 AM or whatever). Here in Sweden, where the length of the day varies from 6 to 18 hours, DST is really useful. How would that work? You'd be getting up at like 3:30AM in the Summer for no reason. That far North there's no way to avoid it being mostly light in the Summer and mostly dark in the Winter, there aren't enough hours of each to shift it around for consistency.
  - kgwgk 9y ago
    It will be 7:00AM, not 3:30AM. Mid-summer in Stocholm the sunset will be at 1:30 and the sunrise at 7:00. And 1000 miles south in Sarajevo clocks will be 1h30 behind, because by the time the Sun rises (at 7:00 local time) it will be already 8:30 in Stockholm...
    - jonknee 9y ago
      Yes, but in reality you'd have to adjust +/- 4 hours to keep waking up at the same time... All to have the sunset at a radically different time. I don't see what benefit that gives you and it would involve a ton of work/annoyances.
      - kgwgk 9y ago
        I agree!
      - svantana 9y ago
        I wasn't saying it's a good idea, just pointing out that it would be the optimal daylight savings. But I don't think you'd notice it too much because you're just shifting the clock ~2 minutes per day.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> Why do we give ourselves more daylight in the summer when the days are naturally longer? If Because: (1) Businesses want to keep consistent hours, (2) lots of work is more efficient with natural light (and people are better at getting up for work when it isn't significantly pre-dawn that they have to do that), (3) people seem more prone to do non-work activity out of the home after work and when there is sunlight; so, to preserve natural light for work when it is scarce and maximize what is available after work when it is plentiful, we turn the clocks back when the days are longer.
- megaman22 9y ago
  For white-collar office work, many of us would probably be happier if we shifted our indoor, artificially lit, never-see-the-sky-anyway working hours to something like 4pm-midnight. Get some daylight that you could really actually use.

svantana 9y ago

The amount of daylight is not changed by setting clocks. The point is to shift daylight hours away from "sleeping time", but still not having to get up when it's dark. The ideal daylight savings would be to synchronize clocks with sunrise, so that sunrise always occurs when it's time to get up (7 AM or whatever). Here in Sweden, where the length of the day varies from 6 to 18 hours, DST is really useful.

kgwgk 9y ago
Of course the other option is to get up with the sunrise. Nobody forces you to sleep until 7AM or whatever.
jonknee 9y ago
> The ideal daylight savings would be to synchronize clocks with sunrise, so that sunrise always occurs when it's time to get up (7 AM or whatever). Here in Sweden, where the length of the day varies from 6 to 18 hours, DST is really useful. How would that work? You'd be getting up at like 3:30AM in the Summer for no reason. That far North there's no way to avoid it being mostly light in the Summer and mostly dark in the Winter, there aren't enough hours of each to shift it around for consistency.
- kgwgk 9y ago
  It will be 7:00AM, not 3:30AM. Mid-summer in Stocholm the sunset will be at 1:30 and the sunrise at 7:00. And 1000 miles south in Sarajevo clocks will be 1h30 behind, because by the time the Sun rises (at 7:00 local time) it will be already 8:30 in Stockholm...
  - jonknee 9y ago
    Yes, but in reality you'd have to adjust +/- 4 hours to keep waking up at the same time... All to have the sunset at a radically different time. I don't see what benefit that gives you and it would involve a ton of work/annoyances.
    - kgwgk 9y ago
      I agree!
    - svantana 9y ago
      I wasn't saying it's a good idea, just pointing out that it would be the optimal daylight savings. But I don't think you'd notice it too much because you're just shifting the clock ~2 minutes per day.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> Why do we give ourselves more daylight in the summer when the days are naturally longer? If Because: (1) Businesses want to keep consistent hours, (2) lots of work is more efficient with natural light (and people are better at getting up for work when it isn't significantly pre-dawn that they have to do that), (3) people seem more prone to do non-work activity out of the home after work and when there is sunlight; so, to preserve natural light for work when it is scarce and maximize what is available after work when it is plentiful, we turn the clocks back when the days are longer.

megaman22 9y ago
For white-collar office work, many of us would probably be happier if we shifted our indoor, artificially lit, never-see-the-sky-anyway working hours to something like 4pm-midnight. Get some daylight that you could really actually use.