“Falling back” makes us more miserable than “springing forward,” new study finds

A study using U.S. online and social media posts found that people’s moods tend to worsen during the biannual transitions to Daylight Saving Time (in the spring) and Standard Time (in the fall). This worsening of mood is more pronounced after the change to Standard Time in the fall. The paper was published in PLOS One.

Seasonal time change is the practice of adjusting clocks twice a year. In spring, clocks are moved forward by one hour to Daylight Saving Time, usually in March. This shift is described as “losing” an hour of sleep. In fall, clocks are moved back by one hour to Standard Time, typically in October or November. This is known as “gaining” an extra hour of sleep.

The purpose of these changes is to make better use of daylight during longer days. In spring, evenings become lighter, while mornings are darker. In fall, mornings become lighter, while evenings get darker earlier. These changes can temporarily affect sleep patterns and daily routines.

However, research shows that time changes are associated with negative public sentiment. The shifts also disrupt sleep patterns, increase risks of accidents and health issues, and may impair cognitive functioning. There is an ongoing debate about whether to adopt permanent Daylight Saving Time or permanent Standard Time, as each has different implications for sleep, health, and daily life.

Daylight Saving Time is currently used in most of the United States and Canada, in parts of Australia and New Zealand, as well as in most European countries. Many countries near the equator have stopped using it or never adopted it because daylight variation there is minimal throughout the year. Similarly, Russia and Turkey have stopped changing clocks.

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Study author Ben Ellman and his colleagues conducted a study using social media to measure how public sentiment changes around the dates of these time shifts. They hypothesized that there would be more negative sentiment immediately following the clock shifts, and that this negative sentiment would be stronger in the fall.

The authors collected daily data on social media mentions and sentiment about time changes within a 20-day span surrounding these events. The dataset used for analysis was collected using the Quid (formerly Netbase) Social Media Listening platform.

The researchers defined a set of primary terms to use in their social media search, including DST, #DST, Daylight savings, extra hour, gain an hour, lose an hour, standard time, and #Timechange. Analyzing posts made between 2019 and 2023, the study authors collected a total of 821,140 mentions.

The researchers did not just look at the U.S. as a whole; they specifically looked for posts originating from cities located within 100 miles of U.S. time zone borders. By comparing the sentiment in a city just west of a time zone border on the day of the time change with a city just east of the border on the day prior, the researchers were able to isolate the “shock” of the time change itself, holding variables like weather and daylight schedules relatively constant.

The authors used Quid’s Natural Language Processor to examine the tone and context of the posts. Each post was assigned a sentiment value between -100 and 100, depending on whether it expressed a positive or a negative mood. They also had Quid’s processor categorize mentions by unique terms that drive the sentiment of each primary term.

Results showed that in the national dataset, the mean number of daily mentions of terms related to time change was 32,271, with huge variations from day to day. The highest numbers of daily mentions occurred in the Eastern and Pacific regions of the U.S. Overall, the average national sentiment while under Daylight Saving Time (positive: 5.65) was better than under Standard Time (negative: -13.02).

Ultimately, the results revealed negative shocks to sentiment after both time changes. However, the outcomes following the transitions differed. The researchers found that while the negative mood drop following the spring change to Daylight Saving Time attenuated (recovered) relatively quickly, the negative sentiment following the fall change to Standard Time persisted for a longer period.

“These findings provide evidence that individuals have a more negative reaction to the societal time change to Standard Time in the fall than they do to DST in the spring. This work highlights the potential that the reaction to societal time changes varies depending on whether moving to or away from DST or Standard Time,” the study authors concluded.

The study adds to the scientific knowledge regarding how people react to time changes. However, the authors note that sentiment towards time changes depends on complex behavioral responses and demographic characteristics that were not observed in this study. Because people differ in their social media use patterns, these differences in reactions might not be completely or adequately reflected in social media posts alone.

The paper, “Social media analysis reflects the negative sentiments experienced at both time changes with somewhat more depressive impact in early fall,” was authored by Ben Ellman, Michael L. Smith, Carson Reeling, and Nicole J. Olynk Widmar.