9-10pm is the perfect time for the sun to go down in summer, you can enjoy being outside for longer.

Honestly, I'd like it if it went down earlier; it's fun to have a drink outside in the twilight and night hours while still going to bed at a reasonable hour (which is around 10, in my case).

I can do that in the winter, sure, but in the summer there's a distinct lack of snow, which is nice.

What if instead of going to bed when the clock says so regardless of the Sun, you to to bed when the Sun goes down regardless of what the clock says.

The clock is just this little thing on your wall. The Sun is almighty and the reason why you're here. Forget the clock!

Very few jobs let people do that (assuming you'd also get up when the sun rises) and the number of hours of sleep you'd get each day would vary seasonally.

That's an incredibly insensitive statement to make considering how many people have light induced insomnia. They suffer greatly during the summer months to make it easier for other people to play golf after work. Just because you enjoy something doesn't mean everyone enjoys the same thing or that it is free from consequences to others that you don't have to endure yourself.

What about the people who suffer from SAD in the winter when it gets dark at 4:30 PM and they have to commute home from work in the darkness?

You can't please everyone.

Wouldn't standard time just shift the problem to the morning? They'd have trouble staying asleep after 4am.

Or they could buy blackout curtains or a sleep mask?

Do you have some data on how many people have light induced insomnia?

Honestly asking: Does this mean you prefer it to come up at 4:00 AM (as that would be the option if you are in a place where it is going down 9-10pm)?

Where I live it rises at 4am and sets at 10pm in the summer. I'd actually love to live somewhere where it is like that all year around, but maybe that's just because right now it's 9am - 4pm.

Considering it already comes up early, yeah, I can stay asleep if its bright out, but going to bed when its bright out is really hard.

or up north... 10-11pm, awful.

That's down south. Way down south.

(I am pretty much straddling 70 degrees north as I type this - sun last seen Nov 23rd, comes back in two weeks. Midnight sun between May 17th and July 26th.)

> That's down south. Way down south.

Um, no? For example, in Alaska during the summer (in the northern hemisphere) there's a period of the year where they have sunlight 24 hours a day. In winter, they have 24 hours of darkness.

So no, it's not a "south" thing (until you get to, for example, Antarctica). The closer to the equator, the less extreme the changes are.

EDIT: I see your addition in specifying the sunset time right now, whereas the rest of the thread seems to be aimed at the extremes, which will be closer to the summer and winter solstices. We just passed the winter solstice, so of course the sun will be going down quite early (in the northern hemisphere).

The point I was (clumsily, as it were) trying to make was that one man's north is another man's south - the sun setting (at summer solstice) at 11pm is something happening way south of where I am currently at - but, apparently, way north of wherever the person I was replying to was at. :)

We should just split the difference and call it even!