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Daylight saving time may become permanent. The reactions online are mixed.

By Shannon Larson Globe Staff,Updated March 16, 2022, 7:21 a.m.
The Senate bill to end daylight saving time still needs to pass in the House of Representatives.CHRIS DELMAS/AFP via Getty Images

Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey is walking on sunshine.

A bill he co-sponsored that would make daylight saving time permanent year round, which is currently observed from March through November, was passed by the Senate on Tuesday. Coined the Sunshine Protection Act, the legislation now heads to the House for debate.

Markey was so thrilled he even re-upped a playlist he curated last year designed to rally support around the measure.

It features such hits as The Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun,” Sheryl Crow’s “Soak Up The Sun,” and — you guessed it — Scooter Lee’s “Walking On Sunshine.”

Everyone else? If social media is any indication, the reaction is decidedly mixed. Memes popped up in rapid succession over the news, with users quick to air their opinion on the issue.

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And like most topics debated online, the stances shared were hardly lukewarm or neutral.

Most are familiar with the common woes associated with turning the clocks twice in the year: feeling disoriented, like the concept of time has all but evaporated, and a sense of exhaustion that is hard to shake.

“I love the week after switching to daylight saving,” tweeted one person. “Time has no meaning. My clocks all run sideways.”

Many parents also pointed out that their children do not operate on a schedule in accordance to the time that shows up on their clocks.

“JUST PICK ONE AND BE DONE WITH IT, I DON’T CARE WHICH ONE, WE ARE ALREADY LATE FOR SCHOOL,” tweeted one mom in exasperation.

Yet it remains a conversation starter so rife for discourse that some avoid talking about it entirely.

One Michigan-based meteorologist likened discussing the subject to messing with “Jeopardy” or “The Wheel of Fortune” on television.

Some, including Markey, praised the bipartisan nature that propelled the bill forward in a relatively unexpected fashion. Proponents on both sides of the aisle have been pushing to make daylight saving time permanent for years now.

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The “best thing about this Sunshine Protection Act,” tweeted one person, “is seeing our government all finally agree on something.”

But not everyone was so quick to jump on board with idea and offer up praise to lawmakers for working together.

A number of people rattled off other issues, they argued, are more pressing to be addressed — from education to housing to child care.

“Friends, constituents, patriots, citizens, I’m pleased to announce that the sun is finally safe from the clutches of the wretched creatures of the night,” said comedian Vinny Thomas in a video he uploaded to Twitter.

“Many of you might be wondering, ‘Why was this a priority instead of child care or the minimum wage?’ Well, it’s hard to care for a child who’s been eaten by vampires,” he continued. “It’s hard to earn a minimum wage when you’re hiding in the forest, from all manner of demons.”

And, some pointed out, it is not the first time that the topic of changing the clocks appears to have eclipsed some of the more weighty issues on the agenda of legislators in the news cycle — drawing a comparison to a storyline from HBO’s “Veep.”

“I can’t believe the Daylight saving time bit from VEEP is no longer satire,” one person wrote.

Many also noted the legislation only goes so far as to solve the problem of shorter and gloomier winter days, particularly in northern states.

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People questioned whether the trade-off of waking up in the darkness later in the morning is really that much better than the alternative.

One person suggested (likely with a touch of Internet humor) that if the Sunshine Protection Act is enacted, the effects of the change would be noticeable on the presidential map — dividing the north from the south.

But some are just fans of the darkness (and Cher).

Several went even further, contending that it should be Standard Time — observed from November through March — that we should stick to year-round instead.

“Waking before sunrise is unnatural and unhealthy,” one person tweeted.

And others were adamant they could not care at all.

Some, meanwhile, took the time to offer up their own solutions to tackle and end the debate once and for all.

They ranged from the fairly simple to the more complex.

Matthew Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, issued a stark warning: “We’ll live to regret this.”

The experiment of tinkering with time was tried once before in the 1970s and deemed a mistake not long after.

But if we were to make daylight saving time year-round, some asked, what would happen next?

Only time will tell.

Shannon Larson can be reached at shannon.larson@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @shannonlarson98.

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