

Teenagers allowed to wake up later have fewer absences from school - Kliment
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/8579951.stm

======
david_adams
There's a thing called Delayed Sleep Phase Sndrome. It's a circadian rhythm
disorder that affects maybe 1/2 of 1% of people (but seems to be more
prevalent among engineers and software people, possibly because DSPS sufferers
choose vocations that allow for flexible schedules). Essentially, DSPS people
have a natural sleep-wake cycle that's shifted a few hours from the norm. My
natural cycle is to sleep at about 2:30am and wake at 11:30. I can force
myself into a "normal" schedule, but I can't change my natural circadian
rhythm, so I suffer from various effects of sleep disruption that are similar
to jetlag. For some reason, a high proportion of teenagers, particularly boys,
experience temporary DSPS during their adolescence. It can be as many as 20%.
I suspect that the natural creeping of the circadian rhythm that happens
during adolescence (as mentioned in this article) kicks into overdrive for
some kids, and gives them DSPS-like symptoms during that time. Most of these
kids grow out of it and re-establish a normal rhythm into adulthood. People
like me, however, keep their DSPS throughout their lives. (And it's
hereditary. I got it from my mother)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_syndrome>

~~~
warfangle
I'm a little different - I'm fairly certain I have a non-24-hour circadian
clock. If I do not force myself, via scheduled melatonin supplements and
caffeine/B-vitamin supplements, I naturally land on about a 26 hour circadian
clock.

It gets really annoying really quickly.

Tangentially. I wonder at the reason for the increase of DSPS during
adolescence among boys. It might very well be evolutionary - the young had to
stay up later for watching over camps/habitat at night, perhaps?

~~~
sdurkin
Adolescent common chimpanzees form bands of males that stay up later than the
rest and patrol the group's perimeter. I'm guessing human teenagers are
genetically programmed to be the night watch.

(Reposted from below :)

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skennedy
Alright, so the research has been conducted, verified, and introduced changes
in the lives of teenagers. Now let's move on to adults. Where's my 10am start
time at work???

~~~
kerkeslager
Adults aren't teenagers.

As an adult, your [highest daytime alertness is at 10AM](
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Biological_clock_human.PNG>). You don't go
from drowsy to alert instantly, so 9AM to 10AM is one of the most alert parts
of your day.

~~~
lotharbot
Adults aren't all identical.

My biological clock is about 3 hours behind, in relation to the light-dark
cycle. I become tremendously productive just before noon.

------
gfunk911
In high school, I would fall asleep in class all the time. Teachers would
yell, I'd get in trouble, it was awful. It wasn't intentional, I was just so
tired that I could not keep myself awake. If I could have stopped it, I would
have been much happier, but I couldn't.

Even during my waking periods, I'm sure I wasn't operating at peak mental
efficiency.

~~~
yesimahuman
Anecdotal evidence: I can't ever remember being as exhausted as I was having
to get up every day for high school. I think my body has adjusted better to
less sleep now, but I just remember it being awful.

I felt even worse for the kids who came on the bus. No wonder many of them
couldn't stay awake! They probably had to get up at 5:30 every morning just to
go to school!

~~~
warfangle
Anecdotally, I had an hour and a half bus ride to school back in the day. We
were picked up at 5:45 (school started at 7:30). For much of the school year,
it was pitch dark out waiting for the bus.

If I wanted to be presentable and eat breakfast, I had to wake up at 4:45.

~~~
decadentcactus
I was similar. Towards the end of high school I moved far away. School started
at 8:30, my alarm was set to 6. Bus left just before 7 down the road a little.

It was interesting taking a bus + train + bus to school, but I wasn't really a
fan of waking up that early.

------
duck
10am? That means they were going at 9am? That seems really late compared to
when I went to school and it started at 7:30am! I can see where later would
cut down on absentees, but it seems to be at a cost of pushing after school
activities later and taking away from family time.

I think the four-day school week is a better idea. I think it would help in
terms of attendance and would cut costs:
[http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=four%20day%20school%...](http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=four%20day%20school%20week&aql=&gs_rfai=&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wn)

~~~
smackfu
Another factor is that in the US, there's often a bottleneck in the bus
system. It's more efficient to use the same buses for multiple levels of
school, but a "bus cycle" may take an hour, and you may have three schools to
service separately (high school, middle school, elementary). As a a result,
the elementary school may start at 9 AM, but that pushes the high school to 7
AM. And you don't really want to reverse it.

~~~
gwern
> As a a result, the elementary school may start at 9 AM, but that pushes the
> high school to 7 AM. And you don't really want to reverse it.

Why not? I'm one of 4 children; every single one of us in elementary school
would get up on our own ridiculously early. We would wake up and eagerly watch
_Pokemon_ at, IIRC, 6:30 AM. Waking up in the 5s wasn't unheard of. It wasn't
until high school and getting up at 6 AM that an older kid would finally start
getting up before the younger kids.

~~~
graywh
The problem is having the younger children outside waiting for the bus in the
dark before or soon after the sun comes up in late autumn and winter.

~~~
gwern
That doesn't sound so bad. It's going to be cold even if one waits an hour or
two.

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joeyo
I hate to be that guy, but the headline should say _fewer_ absences.

~~~
mynameishere
Then don't. Def #6

<http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/less>

~~~
lincolnq
Cool! But the OED disagrees: <http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/few>

The wikipedia article says that using fewer for counting nouns is fairly new:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fewer_vs._less>

So I guess you're probably right, and it's not worth correcting people on this
matter.

(But I'm probably still going to use fewer instead of less).

~~~
spatulon
The distinction can be important. For example, are you one of the less
intelligent members of HN, or one of the fewer intelligent members of HN?

~~~
petercooper
Cute example but the fewer vs less argument is for when those words affect the
same word.

In "less intelligent members," less is an adverb affecting the verb of the
sentence, whereas in "fewer intelligent members," fewer is affecting the
number of "members." The word switch is changing the entire meaning of the
sentence, but the fewer vs less argument is over using the right word for a
single, specific meaning.

------
kevinelliott
School start time is changing to 30 minutes later than the current time at a
school that my fiance teaches at next year. The decision has come with some
mixed opinions, but there is certainly some evidence to support this theory.
Although, a lot of the kids are pretty pissed, because it means they have to
stay at school for 30 mins later into their valuable afternoons.

My opinion though is that once people get use to the new hours (perhaps after
6 months, 1 year, or longer) that it will become the new "normal" and lose its
benefits. But my opinion is garbage, because I wake up and go to sleep at
terribly insane hours :)

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jasonlbaptiste
This is usually how I did it in high school. I would stay up late either
working on actual school work, messing around with video production for tv
station, or some web stuff. Instead of waking up tired as hell, I would just
go in later. It's better to miss a few hours than take the entire day off OR
have that tired feeling ruin an entire day with a domino effect impacting the
rest of your productivity. I'm glad people are finally doing something about
this.

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adelevie
In my high school we had "late" days once or twice a month, where the school
day started about an hour later than usual. Also, seniors could schedule their
classes so that they could either be done for the day an hour early or show up
an hour late. Years later, I still remember the euphoria of waking up at 7
only to realize I had an extra hour to sleep.

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jsz0
This would have definitely helped me out in school. One bathroom, 4 people,
standing at a bus stop at 7am outside in freezing temperatures, lack of coffee
(not allowed in my school even in HS), lack of transportation for after school
activities before 5PM, staying up late to use the phone line on my computer
after everyone else went to sleep, staying up until ungodly hours to watch
MST3k on Comedy Central, etc. Gotta imagine kids today still face some of
these reasons for needing a later start. These are the type of people who in
the _real world_ would gravitate towards jobs that allowed them the same
respect & flexibility.

------
hkuo
I can personally vouch for this myself in practice.

This is a classic case of quality vs quantity. Depending on my workload, I
have sessions of varying time of hyper-activity. If something is highly
urgent, then these sessions can endure for as long as I need. The only thing I
require is that I'm not that tired.

Luckily, I work in an environment that only requires results. Time is of
course tracked, but the ultimate reflection of my value is in my creative
thinking and the actual work that gets done.

------
sketerpot
I've been wondering for a while now: why are so many people at HN and similar
sites generally the late-riser type? It seems disproportionate.

~~~
petercooper
A lot of us have the freedom to be. A disproportionate number of us are
owners/founders or otherwise self employed. I go to bed about 8 am :-)

~~~
robryan
I think there is a tenancy for the hacker type to be a night owl, maybe it has
something to do with the ability to be able to do work at any hour and the
relative peace you get at night.

------
SandB0x
How are parents supposed to get their children prepared or take them to school
in office hours?

~~~
jsnellink
How are parents supposed to pick their children up during office hours?

Combined with the option of riding a bus, I don't think it makes parent's
lives any more difficult. Without a bus, I can see it being a big problem for
many families, though.

~~~
encoderer
Here's the trouble.. School start times for Elementary, Middle and High School
need to be staggered. Otherwise they'd need a lot more buses.

But if you put grade school kids at the earlier start time, you'll have little
kids that take the bus standing outside in the dark. That is not good.

In some communities with a bus mass transit service you can start HS at the
same time as grade school by putting the HS kids on the transit buses. That
works--the buses aren't as regulated, but it works. But school districts where
this is possible are probably just a fraction.

~~~
idoh
In San Francisco Unified there isn't a high school bus system, and the classes
still start at 7:30 AM. It has more to do with hidebound teachers and admins.

~~~
encoderer
Of course, not having a high school bus system doesn't defacto mean you'll
start class late.

But bussing high school kids means you can't, unless you want to...(see my OP)

------
sdurkin
Adolescent common chimpanzees form bands of males that stay up later than the
rest and patrol the group's perimeter. I'm guessing human teenagers are
genetically programmed to be the night watch.

------
pw0ncakes
In a couple Wall Street companies I've experienced, the penalties were harsher
for being a few minutes late than just calling in sick, so there were a lot of
unnecessary sick days that happened because a person would rather "throw a
sickie" than get reamed for showing up at 9:08. It's really stupid and
counterproductive.

~~~
jedc
At a previous employer, we were supposed to be in at 8:30am. Our boss even
spoke to myself and a friend if we regularly arrived at 8:45, even if we
didn't have any specific appointments. (And we stayed _plenty_ late at the end
of the day.)

I wouldn't have minded, except that he would regularly be 30-60 minutes late
for meetings with clients!

Yes, rules like this can be extremely stupid and counterproductive.

~~~
jrockway
Hah. I remember having a job where my boss would complain about how late I was
every day. He said I should come in earlier. I didn't. He asked me if I had
trouble understanding his instructions. I told him I understood perfectly, but
I just wasn't awake at that hour. He then asked, "so you're intentionally
disobeying my instructions." I smiled and said yes.

The issue was not raised again.

(Compare this to my current job, where I got weird looks when I asked if I
should be in at 9 on my first day. Little did I realize that this was a place
where people came in at 7:00 _pm_ and nobody batted an eye :)

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lambdom
1 word: duh.

------
dpcan
The more we do this stuff to kids, the more the real world is going to kick
their ass.

~~~
cstross
You didn't read the article, or the background research behind it, did you?

It's based on research into the natural sleep cycle of adolescent humans, and
their cognitive abilities. Turns out that there are changes associated with
puberty (who knew?) that make them wake up several hours later and stay awake
longer than children; their cognitive abilities also peak later in the day.
From age 18 onwards they revert towards the adult baseline.

Assuming you're an adult, do you think you'd work more efficiently if you were
rousted out of bed at 5am to start work each morning, and forced to finish at
1pm?

~~~
dpcan
No, I absolutely know that I would not work better that way, but my point is,
everyone around me is forced to wake up at the crack of dawn and get their ass
to work.

I have kids in school, and every year the school changes things around to
accommodate some consultant's suggestions regarding grades, start times,
recesses, how they learn to read, how they learn math, etc.

Every damn year!! Kids are getting screwed left and right because of studies
like this. Last year, my oldest was using one method to learn to read, this
year it's something new. And a new way of learning math too.

They had an assembly for us parents explaining to us that they were preparing
kids for "jobs that don't exist yet". And that they didn't know if these
methods were perfect, but they were based on studies, so.... Kids just end up
confused.

This hits a nerve with me. I hate seeing this stuff happen because of studies.
I hate when people like you justify stuff like this when you aren't living in
it.

Also, how do parents get their kids to school at 10am? How? School needs to
start when work starts so we can drop them off on our way.

This stuff screws up kids and will make adjusting to the real world much
harder.

~~~
scott_s
Are there no buses where you are? During my entire time in public school, I
got there in one of three ways: took the bus, I got a ride with my older
brother, or I drove myself.

Also keep in mind this would apply to high school students, not elementary
school kids. And this isn't a single study, or even a new result. I've known
this about teenagers for a while.

~~~
dpcan
No. In fact, buses don't go far enough out in some places here, and they don't
stop close enough. Plus, I believe they can't afford to run all their buses
anymore.

I didn't have my own car until I was a senior in high school. I got dropped
off every day (12 years ago now.)

Where we are people live far enough from the school that it's too far too
walk, but it's just as far to walk to catch a bus. Getting kids home from
school is equally as difficult but most kids are forced to take the long treks
by foot or bike. And in the winter, we sometimes get 3+ feet of snow at a
time.

It's a big world, I know I shouldn't have started this argument here. I'm
frustrated about the education my own kids are getting, and I hate seeing so
many people agree with studies that cause sweeping changes in schools.

I'll read the article again. I'm pretty sure I read through it the first time
with my mind frustrated with this headline anyway.

