Twice a year, millions of people reset their clocks by an hour and complain about it. But according to a new analysis of social media posts, people appear to react much more negatively to one of those shifts than the other. The fall switch back to Standard Time triggers a stronger and longer-lasting wave of frustration than the spring move to Daylight Saving Time.
In a study published in PLOS One, researchers analyzed thousands of social media posts surrounding U.S. clock changes between 2019 and 2023 to measure how people reacted to the biannual time shift.
“Our findings provide evidence that individuals have a negative reaction to both time jumps in spring and fall, and that this reaction is more negative in the fall as we change to Standard Time, than in the Spring when we switch to DST,” the authors of the study said in a press release.
Measuring Public Reaction to Daylight Saving Time
To understand how people feel about the twice-yearly time shift, researchers analyzed social media posts collected within a 20-day window surrounding each clock change.
Using a social media monitoring platform, the team examined posts on X (formerly Twitter) between 2019 and 2023. They then applied sentiment analysis, a technique that uses algorithms to determine whether online comments express positive, neutral, or negative feelings.
The results showed that both clock changes triggered an immediate drop in online sentiment — a kind of negative “shock” that appeared right after the clocks changed. But the timing of the recovery differed.
After the spring transition to Daylight Saving Time, negative reactions tended to fade relatively quickly. In contrast, complaints about the fall return to Standard Time lingered longer and remained more strongly negative.
To better isolate the effect of the clock change itself, the researchers also compared sentiment in cities located on opposite sides of U.S. time-zone borders. Communities on either side of those borders experience similar daylight patterns but change clocks at different times, allowing the team to separate reactions to the clock change from broader seasonal effects.
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Why the Fall Change Feels Worse
The difference may seem surprising. After all, the spring clock change is the one that causes people to lose an hour of sleep.
But the fall shift brings its own challenges. As the clocks move back, daylight disappears earlier in the evening — a change many people find discouraging as winter approaches.
Previous research has also suggested that seasonal time changes can influence sleep patterns, mood, and productivity, contributing to broader dissatisfaction with the practice.
The new study doesn’t directly measure those biological effects. Instead, it captures the collective public reaction expressed online during the days surrounding each time change.
A Long-Running Debate About Daylight Saving Time
Daylight Saving Time was first introduced in the U.S. in 1918, shortly after the country entered World War I. The idea was that shifting clocks forward would extend evening daylight and conserve energy during the war effort.
More than a century later, the twice-yearly clock change remains controversial. Studies have linked the shifts to economic costs, disruptions to sleep schedules, and potential effects on health and well-being.
The new research approaches the issue from a different angle by examining how people react to the time changes themselves. By analyzing social media posts surrounding the clock shifts, the study provides a broad snapshot of public sentiment during those transitions.
The authors note that online sentiment is only one way to measure public attitudes. Future work could explore whether people actually prefer permanent Standard Time or permanent Daylight Saving Time, a question that continues to surface in policy debates.
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