# Social media analysis reflects the negative sentiments experienced at both time changes with somewhat more depressive impact in early fall

## TL;DR

This study shows that changing the clock in the fall causes more negative emotions than in the spring, based on social media data from 2019 to 2023.

## Contribution

The study provides new evidence that societal time changes have a stronger negative emotional impact in the fall compared to the spring.

## Key findings

- Negative sentiment shocks occur after both spring and fall time changes, with a stronger effect in the fall.
- The negative impact of the fall time change to Standard Time is persistent, unlike the spring change to DST.
- Emotional reactions to time changes vary depending on whether the change is to or from Daylight Saving Time.

## Abstract

We quantify the effect of biannual time changes on sentiment using US online and social media posts from periods around changes to Daylight Saving Time (DST) in the spring and Standard Time (ST) in the fall over the period 2019–2023. We compare sentiment—a measure of individuals overall mood or emotions towards an event—in cities on either side of US time zones the day before and after the societal time change. We find negative shocks to sentiment following both time changes. This effect seems stronger in the fall. Given the amount of daylight relative to a fixed work schedule should be the same in each group of cities on these days, these differences suggest strong negative ceteris paribus reactions to societal time changes, which may indicate preference to abolish these adjustments, although we do not measure preference for DST versus ST. We also use regression analysis to estimate how sentiment changes over time. We find persistent negative impacts from the change to Standard Time in the fall. In contrast, individuals experience a noisy shock to sentiment that attenuates over time. 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.