Re:News is usually pretty onto it when it comes to delivering well-researched, well-thought out, interesting news. So, it was even more jarring to see this article from them. The headline borders on the tabloid, and on closer examination, is factually inaccurate.
The piece claims high schoolers lose almost three hours of sleep over daylight savings. When you click on the hyperlink, it redirects you to a 2015 study that was done on 35 students over 16 days in one school in Westchester County, NY. Hardly a generalisable study. The next claim is that lack of sleep causes depression. The linked study demonstrates a correlation between lack of sleep and low mental health, but in no way claims causality. This is evidently not the same as “Daylight saving is causing depression”. As for the car accident part, listen to “The Sleep Loss Epidemic” episode of Maintenance Phase for a thorough debunking.
Re:News is not the only outlet guilty of inaccurate science reporting. But that doesn’t mean we should settle for poor science reporting as the standard quo—no matter how much we all hate Daylight Savings Time.
It’s giving “Doctors HATE her: use this one simple trick!” energy.
