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Poor Grades Tied To Class Times That Don't Match Our Biological Clocks (berkeley.edu)
An anonymous reader shares a report: It may be time to tailor students' class schedules to their natural biological rhythms, according to a new study from UC Berkeley and Northeastern Illinois University. Researchers tracked the personal daily online activity profiles of nearly 15,000 college students as they logged into campus servers. After sorting the students into "night owls," "daytime finches" and "morning larks" -- based on their activities on days they were not in class -- researchers compared their class times to their academic outcomes. Their findings, published today in the journal Scientific Reports, show that students whose circadian rhythms were out of sync with their class schedules -- say, night owls taking early morning courses -- received lower grades due to "social jet lag," a condition in which peak alertness times are at odds with work, school or other demands. "We found that the majority of students were being jet-lagged by their class times, which correlated very strongly with decreased academic performance," said study co-lead author Benjamin Smarr, a postdoctoral fellow who studies circadian rhythm disruptions in the lab of UC Berkeley psychology professor Lance Kriegsfeld.
So we tailor their class times to their biological rhythms and they turn into adults with juvenile biological rhythms. Will they ever really grow up?
Our ancestors worked a few hours a day hunting game and then went back to doing nothing. Pretty much like most predators in the wild.
The main difference is that we today have a LOT more to spend our time and money on so we have to work more to get that shit paid. But if you consider what you really need, you'll notice that working just a few hours a day is plenty.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
People today would not be able to cope with what they had to.
So what? I don't think my grandfather, who had the same job his entire adult life, expected dinner to be on the table when he got home, and frequently relied on violence as an educational tool would thrive in today's world either. The only thing that doesn't seem to change is people who repeat ad nauseam that things were better in the past.
Society is evolving. For the most part, men no longer drag women by their hair to fuck them next to piles of animal bones in cold, humid caves, and I don't think we lost of lot as a species as we moved past that. Today, with some exceptions, every person has a chance to make a meaningful contribution to society, and this is a good thing if we're at a point where people think about biological clocks to optimize productivity and happiness, instead of "toughing it out" and sticking with rigid systems.
Yes, there are idiotic aspects in today's life that may be mistakenly perceived as "evolution" (such as sexist and racist hiring policies at Google under the guise of "diversity"), but challenging the practice of having rigid schedules is not one of them. It's about time that we start considering better options than 9 to 5 for everyone, and next time you're stuck in traffic at rush hour you'll probably agree.
lucm, indeed.
Perhaps. Or perhaps - like me - one may only accept jobs without onerous requirements on hours worked. You want me to be in at 9am for a quarterly review meeting? Sure. You need me in by 9am every morning. Nope.
The main difference is that we today have a LOT more to spend our time and money on so we have to work more to get that shit paid.
False. While most things have rose at the rate of inflation, prices for entertainment have dropped substantially in the past 20 years. While a 55" tv would have cost $3,000+ just twenty years ago, they can now be bought for $300. Camcorders, cameras, tape/cd players have all been replaced by relatively inexpensive smartphones. Film and tapes for cameras and camcorders have been replaced by cheap memory cards and free unlimited online storage you can access anywhere from your phone. DVD and vcrs have been replaced by smart tvs with Netflix, Hulu and YouTube. 20 years ago you might spend thousands on a reasonable music and movie collection, that has been replaced by spending a few dollars a month on Netflix and Amazon streaming, Apple Music and Spotify.
Thanks to advances in vehicle reliability people are even keeping cars longer, an average of 11.5 years https://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/2...
So really this is the richest the average American has ever been.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
At my last job, we had "core hours" from 9-3 that everyone was supposed to be in, but outside those hours was up to us. I got used to a 6:30-3:00 schedule that I still maintain even though I no longer have formal schedule requirements. As long as you're in for enough of the day to overlap sufficiently with the people you need to interact with, I see no reason to dictate mornings or afternoons.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Night owls don't stay up late and wake up late because they like to party and are lazy to wake up in the morning. Researchers have found that not everyone's biological clock runs at exactly 24 hours. Those whose clock runs slower (say 25 hours) are night owls - they tend to still be alert after the earth's rotation says they should've gone to sleep, and likewise tend to wake up later because their biological clock put them to sleep later. Those whose clock runs faster (say 23 hours) are morning larks - they tend to wake up earlier because their biological clock put them to sleep more quickly, and likewise they tend to fall asleep earlier in the night.
BTW, studies have shown people's average biological clock (when deprived of reference to day/night cycles) is 24.2 hours to 25 hours. So it's actually the night owls who are normal, and the morning larks who are abnormal.
Ok, I can see this maybe if working an odd job, maybe a restaurant job (I did these while in school and growing up)...but you certainly can't be serious about this for a real job?
You must be young, perhaps a millennial in order to thing that 9am is "onerous".....but that's they way the real world works my friend.
If you want to make a healthy living, you need to face up to that quick.
The days of sleeping till noon are for teens still living at home, as an adult, you need to go to bed earlier and get up for real world hours.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Hmm...I take it we grew up getting a trophy for showing up, and raised to think the world revolves around you didn't we?
I've got some bad news for you sunshine....unless you wanna live your live in a box under the freeway, you'd better learn quick that YOU had to adjust to how the rest of the world works and deal with it.
Unless you are independently wealthy already, that's just a fact of life.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Life isn't always about getting the schedule or job you want. Sometimes you have to suck it up and do what you need to do and stop whining about why you fail.
Look at it from the point of view of an (intelligent) employer. Unless I need you at specific times to cover a shift, why would I not want you to be working when you're most productive?
The 9am work time exists because that's the time that people in their 50s, on average, become most awake and those were the ones in management positions when the working day drifted towards standardisation. The average time for different age groups to reach peak awareness is basically later for younger people (teenagers are basically useless before 11am). This has been studied for ages and is well known. There are outliers (in both directions). Any job that expects any kind of alertness or creative output should adapt the work times for individuals. Doing anything else is simply accepting that you won't get the best work out of people and whichever manager decides on it should be willing to explain it to the shareholders and auditors.
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