Changing Clocks is Dumb!
By Richard Rost
12 months ago
2025-03 Repost: Daylight Saving Time Must Go!
It's that time again, literally. Twice a year, I make a video ranting about how changing the clocks is ridiculous. This year, I am changing up the theme a little. It is not daylight saving time itself that is the problem, it is the constant switching. If we want more daylight in the evening during the summer, fine, just leave daylight saving time in effect year-round.
And while we are at it, hey, President Trump, this one is for you. You have been signing all kinds of executive actions, why not take a shot at this? Sure, I know it technically requires an act of Congress, but you renamed the Gulf of Mexico, so why not push this through and see what happens? Why wait for Congress to move?
For what it is worth, Trump has already expressed support for eliminating daylight saving time, calling it inconvenient and very costly to the nation. In December 2024, he even said the Republican Party would use its "best efforts to eliminate daylight saving time." So, how about we get this done already?
Make it so!
What do you think? Do you like changing the clocks? Do you want to stick with just daylight saving time or standard time? Tell me your thoughts below.
We should abolish Daylight Saving Time (DST) once and for all. It's time to stop changing the clocks twice a year. DST causes problems for both people and computers.
DST was first introduced in Germany and Austria in 1908 to conserve energy during the war. In the United States, the Uniform Time Act of 1966 established DST, and it's important to note that it's "saving" not "savings," despite the common mispronunciation.
Contrary to popular belief, DST was not created for farmers; in fact, the agricultural industry opposed it. Arizona and Hawaii have exempted themselves from DST, maintaining standard time year-round. Meanwhile, 29 states, including my home state of Florida, have passed laws to make DST permanent, but federal approval is required since it involves interstate commerce.
The time changes are more than an inconvenience. Scientific studies have shown that DST disrupts sleep patterns, mood, and various health aspects. It can exacerbate mental illnesses and increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases and immune-related disorders. These negative effects extend to technology, creating issues with time synchronization, scheduled tasks, and record-keeping.
For example, does your time clock software account for the DST change? If not, it could cause problems. I've personally addressed software issues caused by DST. I recommend using Universal Time (UTC) to track time in Excel spreadsheets and databases, as I covered in recent tutorials.
Daylight Saving Time is outdated and cumbersome. I still dread the biannual ritual of changing multiple clocks. To enact change, I'm writing to my congressman, and I encourage you to do the same. Visit house.gov to find and contact your representative. I've also prepared a letter template, which you can use as a starting point.
In addition to fighting DST, I advocate for ISO standardized date formats, the metric system, and a revised calendar system. These changes may seem ambitious, but they begin with raising awareness and taking action. So join me in spreading the word and pushing for the abolition of DST.
Alright, that's it for my annual rant on DST. Share this message, write your congressman, and let's make a change. Thanks for listening. Take care. Live long and prosper!
Okay, bye.
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Intro On this page, I share my thoughts on why changing clocks for daylight saving time is a bad idea. We'll talk about the history of daylight saving time, why it was introduced, some of the myths surrounding it, and how it affects both people and computers. I'll give examples of the problems DST can cause, including software glitches and disruptions to schedules, and discuss how some states have tried to get rid of it. I also offer tips on how to contact your representatives if you want to support ending the practice, and I talk about a few of my other "life missions," like using ISO date formats and switching to the metric system.Transcript Hey folks, it's Richard Rost with Computer Learning Zone. It's that time of the year again. It's my semi-annual rant about how changing clocks is dumb.
I used to complain about daylight saving time, but it's not just daylight saving time. If you want to keep extra sunlight hours in the summer, that's fine. I don't care. Just leave the clocks alone. Stop messing with them.
And while we're at it, hey, President Trump, this one's for you. You've been signing all kinds of executive actions. Why not take a shot at this? Sure, I know it technically requires an act of Congress, but you renamed the Gulf of Mexico, so why not push this through and see what happens? Why wait for Congress?
The great state of Florida, of which you are a resident, has already voted to get rid of this dumb stuff. You expressed support for eliminating it during your campaign. You called it inconvenient and, quote, "very costly to the nation." You said the Republican Party would use its best efforts to eliminate daylight saving time. So let's get this done. Make it happen. Or as Picard would say, make it so.
For the rest of you, here's the rest of my previous video. So you get all the history and all the good stuff about daylight saving time and why it's so dumb. And yes, I said savings again. It's a habit.
Hey folks, Richard Rost from Computer Learning Zone. I know you just had to watch this video back in November, but I'm going to keep posting it until our lawmakers finally get rid of this stupid practice of changing clocks twice a year. It's dumb. Clearly, I'm not the only person who feels this way.
Look at these people. This guy is so angry, his legs fell off his body. This guy brought his cello to the party. So yeah, it's not just me.
Hey folks, this is Richard Rost with Computer Learning Zone. I want to just take a minute to say that we should abolish daylight saving time once and forever. It's dumb. It's time to stop changing the clocks twice a year.
DST is dumb. It causes problems with both people and computers, and we're going to talk about that in just a minute. It's time to get rid of it.
Daylight saving time was originally introduced in Germany and Austria in 1908 to conserve energy during the war. In the United States, we had the Uniform Time Act of 1966, and that's what gave us daylight saving time. It's daylight saving time, not savings time. I know I catch myself saying it wrong from time to time as well, and that's how dumb daylight saving time is.
Of course, it's a big myth that it was to help the farmers with their crops, when actually the agricultural industry lobbied against DST. They hate it. So that's a big myth.
Now Arizona, which we'll talk about in a minute, and Hawaii, passed state laws to exempt themselves from DST, so they're on standard time year-round. Twenty-nine other states, including where I live in Florida, have passed state laws to make DST permanent.
However, and this is why it's stupid, since doing anything other than exempting yourself from DST goes against that law we talked about, it requires congressional approval because it's interstate commerce and blah, blah, blah. So we could exempt ourselves in Florida from DST, which means we'd be on standard time all year round, but we don't want that. They want to make DST permanent, so that requires congressional approval. The whole thing is dumb.
Let's talk about some more craziness: inside of Arizona, you've got this mess. Arizona is exempt from DST. However, inside Arizona, you've got the Navajo Nation, which does observe DST, but then inside the Navajo Nation is the Hopi Nation, which does not observe DST. So yeah, it's crazy.
The Sunshine Protection Act, introduced by two Floridians, Senator Marco Rubio and Rep. Vern Buchanan, was aimed at making DST permanent. It's been introduced in Congress multiple times and it's passed in the Senate, but it's not passed in the House, so the House members need to get their butts moving. Those pictures in no way represent my feelings toward Congress.
In addition to being a nuisance, DST has been shown to have many negative effects on humans. It can disrupt sleep patterns, mood, alertness, appetite, and it messes with your circadian rhythm. Even this morning I woke up and it was seven o'clock, and of course my body still thinks it's eight o'clock. It can trigger mental illnesses like bipolar disorder and seasonal affective disorder. I had that really bad when I lived up in New York because it was dark all the time.
Those things are all indicators for elevated risks for cardiovascular diseases, injuries, and immune-related diseases, and these are all from scientific papers, not just my opinion. You want some references? Google it.
This is Computer Learning Zone, so DST has also been shown to have many negative effects on technology, which is my emphasis. Switching clocks is dumb. It causes time synchronization issues, scheduled task disruptions, logging and auditing challenges, for example, time clocks with shifts that span the DST switch over.
Sure, Windows itself can handle the change, but does your software calculate those differences properly? If your shift starts at midnight and it ends at 8 a.m., is your time clock software properly programmed to notice that daylight saving time kicked in? I've done lots of software fixes for people that had databases or spreadsheets where that wasn't the case.
In fact, I remember back in 2011 when the iPhone had a huge glitch and everyone was complaining about it. Its clock fell back an hour instead of springing forward during the DST transition, and lots and lots of people had problems waking up that morning. But of course, it's an iPhone, so what do you expect? Android forever.
Anyway, if you've got Excel spreadsheets that track time clock data, the best way to do that is to use UTC or universal time, basically Greenwich Mean Time. Store that in your spreadsheets. I just did a video on this a couple of days ago; I'll put a link down below if you want to watch it.
Same thing for Microsoft Access, which is my forte. If you've got a database where you're keeping track of your time clocks or any other kind of scheduling and calculating the number of hours between clock in and clock out is important, make sure you're using UTC time. Here's a video on that. You can hear me complain about DST some more in these videos.
Of course, I shouldn't even have to tell you how much of a pain it is to run around changing the stove, the microwave, the wall clocks, the clock in the car. It's just easier for me, just a couple of months out of the year, to know that my clock is wrong than to change it everywhere.
Remember the VCR? I hate it. I still have to do it today.
Today DST just ended; we just went to standard time today, we fell back. I'm not looking forward to it. I've got like six clocks I have to change. The pain, twice a year.
So instead of me just complaining about it, what am I going to do? I'm going to write my congressman and I'm going to encourage as many other people as I can to write your congressman as well.
There is the link; you can just Google "write to my congressman" and you'll find house.gov. I'll put a link to this down below as well, you can just click on it. You type in your zip code. There's my rep Byron Donalds. It's right down here, you can find a link to email them. See that little link right there? Click on that. You type in your zip code right here, don't worry about the plus four, hit submit, or there are links up here if you'd rather Facebook them.
I hate Facebook. Facebook them, tweet them, and yes, I'm going to call it tweeting. It's not Xing or whatever they're trying to do nowadays. Or there's a YouTube channel on some of them. Different congressmen have different ways to contact them.
I'm going to email mine. What do you say to them? Well, I wrote a letter. There it is. I'll put a copy of that down below too. You can find it at this page right here. DST is dumb. Feel free to copy and paste if you want. Put your congressman's name up here, your information down there, and send it.
If you're like me and you hate daylight saving time, here's something we can at least try to do. I don't know if they actually read these or not, or if it has any effect, but I'm going to at least try instead of just complaining.
Now I can check this off my list. This is my Rick's Life Missions checklist.
I'm going to convert the world to ISO dates. I've already done several videos on this. This is a proper date format: year, month, day. It's confusing when people around the world use it differently, and it causes software problems too. I've done a lot of videos on this. If you're sharing a spreadsheet with someone who's in England and they're doing day-month-year, which is more logical than the way we do it here in the US, no, this is the way everyone should write dates. I've been putting it on my checks this way for years. And yes, I occasionally still write checks. I'm old.
Mission two: abolish daylight saving time. I complain about it every year. Time to do something about it.
This one I don't see happening in my lifetime - or this one: get everyone to use the metric system. Come on, pounds, inches, dumb.
Yes, I think we should switch to a 28-day calendar. It makes more sense. January 1st is always a Monday. We'll need 13 months of 28 days each, each month has the same number of days. Shift the month names so that October is actually the eighth month. Shift all the rest of them over. Then we have to add a 13th month.
What do we call it? I don't know. Call it Rickember. Then you take New Year's Day, make it a holiday. You can either add it as the 29th day of the last month or whatever you want to do. Or make it outside of the calendar, make it a party day.
Then your leap day is election day every four years and give everybody off so they can go out or do online voting, which we should do. I don't know why we don't.
So there we go. That's my annual tirade on abolishing daylight saving time. It's dumb.
Go write your congressman. Tell them I sent you. Point them to my video. Spread the word. Share this. Let's get rid of daylight saving time forever. And yes, I know I just said savings time. That's how dumb it is.
Bye.Quiz Q1. What is the main point Richard Rost makes about changing clocks for daylight saving time?
A. It is a necessary practice for energy conservation.
B. It is a helpful tradition for agriculture.
C. It is a dumb and unnecessary practice.
D. It is required for computer synchronization.
Q2. Which states are mentioned as being exempt from daylight saving time?
A. California and Texas
B. Arizona and Hawaii
C. New York and Florida
D. Nebraska and Georgia
Q3. What is a common myth about the purpose of daylight saving time?
A. It was designed for computer accuracy.
B. It was created to benefit school children.
C. It was created to help farmers with their crops.
D. It was established to improve public transportation.
Q4. What must a state do if it wants to make daylight saving time permanent, according to the Uniform Time Act of 1966?
A. Get approval from the United Nations
B. Hold a statewide referendum
C. Obtain Congressional approval
D. Seek Presidential executive order
Q5. What negative effects does daylight saving time have on humans?
A. Enhances productivity and reduces disease
B. Disrupts sleep, mood, alertness, appetite, and can trigger mental illness
C. Improves circadian rhythm and immune system
D. Reduces risk for cardiovascular illness
Q6. What technical problems can daylight saving time cause?
A. Better database performance
B. Time synchronization issues, scheduled task disruptions, and logging challenges
C. Simplified software programming
D. Automatic appliance updates
Q7. What does Richard recommend for handling time in databases or spreadsheets?
A. Use local time for all entries
B. Avoid tracking time data
C. Store time using UTC (universal time)
D. Only track the date, not the time
Q8. What example did Richard use to illustrate problems with technology and daylight saving time?
A. Tesla cars charging at the wrong hour
B. The iPhone glitch in 2011 that handled the DST change incorrectly
C. Microsoft Word document date errors
D. Google Calendar always working perfectly
Q9. Which legislation aimed to make DST permanent, as mentioned in the video?
A. The Time Freedom Act
B. The Equal Hours Act
C. The Sunshine Protection Act
D. The American Sunlight Act
Q10. According to Richard, what is the best way to contact lawmakers to express your opinion about daylight saving time?
A. Visit them in person
B. Email, Facebook, tweet, or use their YouTube channel
C. Wait for them to call you
D. Send a handwritten letter only
Q11. Which of the following is NOT one of Richard's 'life missions'?
A. Convert the world to ISO dates
B. Abolish daylight saving time
C. Get everyone to use the metric system
D. Eliminate leap years entirely
Q12. What is Richard's humorous proposed name for a 13th month in a 28-day calendar?
A. Novembril
B. Rickember
C. Octember
D. Zonuary
Answers: 1-C; 2-B; 3-C; 4-C; 5-B; 6-B; 7-C; 8-B; 9-C; 10-B; 11-D; 12-B
DISCLAIMER: Quiz questions are AI generated. If you find any that are wrong, don't make sense, or aren't related to the video topic at hand, then please post a comment and let me know. Thanks.Summary Today's video from Computer Learning Zone covers my regular commentary on the ongoing problem of changing our clocks for daylight saving time. Every year, I find myself making the same plea: let's just leave the clocks alone. If people want more sunlight in the summer, that's fine, but there's no need to keep shifting our clocks back and forth.
I even took a moment to address President Trump, reminding him that he has handled plenty of executive actions already, so why not tackle this one? Even though it technically requires an act of Congress, and Florida—the state he lives in—has passed a law to end this outdated practice, nothing ever seems to move forward. He once called daylight saving time inconvenient and very costly, so the support is certainly there to eliminate it.
To provide more context, I went over some of the background and history. Daylight saving time actually started in Germany and Austria in 1908 as a way to conserve energy during wartime. Here in the United States, the Uniform Time Act of 1966 formalized daylight saving time. It's not even about helping farmers, like many people think. In fact, the agricultural industry lobbied against it and does not support this system.
Interestingly, a handful of states have managed to opt out. For example, Arizona and Hawaii passed local laws so their clocks stay on standard time all year. Meanwhile, other states, including Florida, have passed legislation intending to make daylight saving time permanent, although that route requires federal approval because of the federal law, which makes the whole situation even more unnecessarily complicated.
There's even more confusion when you look at places like Arizona. The state as a whole does not use daylight saving time, but parts of the Navajo Nation do, except where the Hopi Nation falls within it, and they choose not to observe it. That results in a patchwork set of rules that's hard for anyone to keep track of.
Several efforts have been made to change this system, like the Sunshine Protection Act, which was put forward by Florida lawmakers. While it has made it through the Senate, it keeps stalling in the House of Representatives. It's clear that this issue goes beyond just being an annoyance.
Beyond the inconvenience, daylight saving time can be harmful to people's health. Changing the clocks disrupts sleep schedules, moods, alertness, and even appetite by interfering with natural circadian rhythms. For people with mental health conditions like bipolar disorder or seasonal affective disorder, this transition can be especially difficult. These kinds of disruptions are linked to higher risks for heart disease, injuries, and immune-related issues, all backed by scientific research.
From a technology perspective, which is where my main expertise lies, changing the clocks causes all kinds of headaches. Time synchronization issues can crop up, scheduled tasks can be thrown off, and tracking employee shifts becomes a lot trickier if the software isn't programmed to manage these changes properly. Major glitches happen, such as when the iPhone in 2011 made the wrong adjustment and people ended up late for their commitments.
For those working with spreadsheets in Excel or databases in Access, the best practice to avoid these problems is to use universal coordinated time (UTC) or Greenwich Mean Time. That way, calculations aren't thrown off by the changing local times. I have more in-depth videos on this topic, with guidance for both Excel and Access users.
Aside from those bigger issues, there's the hassle of resetting all the clocks around the house twice a year: microwaves, stoves, wall clocks, and car clocks. It is easier to just ignore them and remember that some clocks are off for a while instead of making the rounds every few months.
These days, as soon as daylight saving time ends, I know there's another round of clock changes ahead. Like everyone else, I find it to be a completely unnecessary disruption.
Instead of continuing to complain, I encourage people to contact their lawmakers about this issue. You can find your representative by going to the official House website, entering your zip code, and sending them an email. Share your thoughts, copy my letter if you'd like, and let them know that this system causes more harm than good.
Fixing this is one of the items on my personal to-do list, along with promoting things like ISO date formats for clarity in databases and perhaps even advocating for a 28-day calendar for consistency. Maybe those are a bit ambitious, but the point is we should not have to keep living with an outdated and problematic system.
I encourage everyone who finds daylight saving time as frustrating as I do to take action rather than just put up with it. Write to your congressman, share your opinions, and help spread awareness about the unnecessary hassle and negative consequences of this practice.
You can find a complete video tutorial with step-by-step instructions on everything discussed here on my website at the link below. Live long and prosper, my friends.Topic List This is a commentary/opinion video about the problems of Daylight Saving Time and suggestions for action, not a tutorial, so no topic list is needed. |
