I’m from Germany and the concept of time zones is very foreign to me since we only have one time zone across the country.
As America has multiple time zones I was wondering which time zone is most commonly used to describe a time nationwide. For example if there is a TV show airing at a specific time or someone wants to describe an event happening in a different State.
I often hear people mentioning the Eastern Time (ET) and Pacific Time (PT). Eastern Time understandably applies to the east Coast including New York City. And as far as I understand Pacific Time actually is the Western time including Los Angeles, which also makes me wonder why it’s not called “Western Time (WT)”.
So I wonder which time is the one people most commonly use across the States.
And how do people keep track of that time zone if they’re not living there? Do most people have multiple clocks on their phone or do they Google the time each time or do they calculate when that time is relative to their time in their head?
For national TV networks, they usually only reference two time zones (Eastern and Pacific) and do different broadcast schedules for the east and west coast. On the east coast you’ll hear TV shows advertised as “Watch Ow! My Balls! weeknights at 9:30, 8:30 Central”. Works similarly on the west coast.
For big, live events (State of the Union, Superbowl, etc), they usually start those at a time that’s a compromise. It’ll start earlier on the west coast and end later on the east coast. Usually 7PM Eastern is the time chosen for things like that.
And how do people keep track of that time zone if they’re not living there?
Mostly just knowing where they are and mental math. I usually only have to deal with time zones for work, and it’s typically:
- The vendor/company has 24 hour contact points, so I just call whenever
- I know the vendor is in Chicago and just subtract an hour in my head from east coast time.
- If I’m emailing them, I don’t really worry about it unless I’m setting up a meeting. Then I just let the calendar software handle it.
Thanks for the insight, that explains a lot🙏
Yeah, it’s just not something most of us here really think about; it’s kind of “automatic”.
Since email, IM, Facebook, etc became the norm for keeping in touch, and conversations became much more asynchronous due to that, time zones are much less of a concern for most people. Before the internet, you might just have a note in your phone number list that Aunt Carol in Arizona is 2 hours behind your time.
That said, it is customary (though not required) when requesting a meeting / call with someone in another time zone to use their local time. e.g. “Can we setup a call to discuss this in detail? How’s 2pm your time?”
GO WAY BAITIN
A lot of people will disagree with me, but I prefer the remake, Oops!, Me Nuts!, to the classic Ow! My Balls!.
That one’s good, too, but have you seen the Telemundo version “Ay yi yi! Mis huevos!” ?
So I wonder which time is the one people most commonly use across the States.
normal people? there isnt one.
the united states is soo freakin huge the people living in specific time zones dont generally have to care about the others. when we do, you just have to do the math.
they sell lots of multi-faced clocks for this kind of thing.
There is at least one timezone west of pacific that includes Hawaii and Alaska. It either used to be separate or became separate; I forget which.
As another user said, most things are advertised with times for the local timemzone (and sometimes the neighboring one), so it’s not a big deal for television or events.
If you want some more fun, look at timezone maps and see all the exceptions for daylight saving time (summertime, basically).
It is weird being outside of the US and hearing my coworkers talk about “what time is it in Amerika now?” Which is always Pacific time (presumably since our main US presence is on the west coast). It always irks me a little.
There are 4 timezones in the mainland of the USA: eastern, central, mountain, and pacific. For the most part, it doesn’t make too much difference. There’s no reason for someone on the east coast to need to know what time it is on the west coast anymore than you need to keep track of what time it is in Ireland. Sometimes, you’ll call a friend who lives on the opposite coast, and you might have to think for a couple seconds to make sure you aren’t calling super late at night or early in the morning, but you don’t need to be exactly right about the time for that.
The borders of time zones tend to follow state lines, with some exceptions, so if you live near one, and you want to go to a store or something, you’ll probably be used to having to adjust.
For things like big businesses, where you are having meetings with people across the country, any calendar invite you send includes the time zone, so it will automatically get adjusted for.
What makes it a little weird is that some places have daylight savings time, while others don’t, so you can have different time even if you are in the same zone. Arizona, for example, is in the mountain time zone and doesnt use daylight savings like their neighbors do, but the Navajo Nation (whose reservation is mostly in arizona) does use daylight savings. The Hopi Nation (who are completely surrounded by the navajo) don’t use daylight savings. Basically, you could drive for an hour and change time 4 times.
TL;DR, it doesn’t really matter most of the time, and when it does, it’s not hard to figure out.
When we lived in Indiana they didn’t do dst. Half the year our evening news came on at 10 and half the year it came on at 11.
You’ve got some great replies already, but I haven’t seen an answer to the Pacific Standard vs Western Standard yet.
Long story short; the railway companies came together and named our time zones in the 19th century, and that’s what they chose.
Expounded answer: when the US time zones were being named the West was still being tamed and the Gold Rush was winding down. The time zones looked a lot different back then; the original Pacific time zone was exclusively the coast area.
I’m in the Pacific time zone myself and regularly have to coordinate with friends from other time zones so I felt compelled to answer haha
My favorite is !weedtime@crazypeople.online
/s
I’ve always seen things at a national level get advertised with two times: one for East and West Coast, and then a second, different time, for Central. I don’t know why they couldn’t also show the thing at 6pm in Central timezones, like they would for a 6pm program for New York and LA; it’s not like 6pm isn’t 3 hours apart from those two places. 🤷🏻♂️
