It's certainly an interesting suggestion, and it almost seems like it would be really fun if, suddenly, your day started at 11 pm and went until about 1, 2 pm, when it was time for bed. You'd catch a midnight movie if, you know, you didn't want to be out too late, and prime time would be when all the informercials started.

Still, I'm estimating that we'd probably spend about 200 years, as a planet, arguing about who got to keep the schedule the same as it is now, and who had to change what hours meant. So maybe better to just keep things as they are.
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We have the GMT reference available for just the type of thing you're getting at. However, people apparently prefer having a consistency in the relationship between the local time number and the position of the sun in their local sky than to have a consistency in the local time number and time number of societies across the world.
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Works for me, I have all my day free and I get on Mahalo only in the evening, when there is activity on the site.
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Well, it may seem confusing to convert from one time zone to another, but I think it actually makes it much easier to use time across wide distances. Let's say it was the same time everywhere and I wanted to call New York from California. Well, it's 9 pm in California, so I know that it's 9PM in New York, but I may not know that 9PM in New York is really late and that most people will be asleep - I still need to know there's roughly a three hour difference in terms of the way people react to time, that's not really easier than having to look up that New York is three hours ahead, so it's midnight there, in fact, I think it's harder.
This way you just have to know about the rhythm of life around you by time, then once you translate your time into a new time zone, you know what to expect there, midnight in New York is like midnight in Moscow, they just don't happen simultaneously. I think it would be quite confusing indeed if in some places noon was midday and in others it was midnight, in fact, if that were the case, we would probably end up saying things like, "well, even though it's 9 there, it's like it was midnight here" to describe time differences, so why not just do the math?
Summary - humans run according to the solar day, and the times we've worked out delineate that day. Time zones allow everyone's 5:00 to be roughly equivalent and so gives us a good idea of what's going in other places once we adjust time for the proper zone.
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i'm sleepy so i'm not even sure i'll answer this correctly. i remember seeing those roman or egyptian poles that gauged the sun so i guess the sun dials are kind of how we started out. it is our time in relavance to the sun. then it seems like we used it to measure distances, among other things. by measuring shadows or something, people were able to calculate that the earth was round, before Columbus type theories. that was a long time ago that i saw those so i'm not sure the sources are authentic.

the dumbest thing i've experienced is the state of Indiana. i have driven there several times and people there never seem to know what time it is because they don't accept daylight savings or something. i always ask them about time differences and i get blank stares. maybe they are confused or think the world should revolve around them so maybe, if your area instituted a policy that the world only revolves on your time, you might start a trend.

i do however use the sun still. i very rarely wear a watch and i simply look at the sun. i have been doing this for years because i'm outside a lot in the past. basically, you know when the sun is overhead, it is twelve o'clock so that is why we have time zones. so i don't care what you do as long as the sun is overhead where i live. put the other side of the world in the dark. generally, the debates over time zones are still had because of farming conditions and revenue to those states over something or another. so the question isn't without some merit to economic activity. so the queston turns into what if the clock was never invented thread. clocks would go back to candles, bells, or some type of water devices in history. i'm sure wikipedia is a reminder of these things which ultimately means that work, not farming is probably why we are regulated with clocks. it is a good point that with the internet, people are less inclined to use clocks and life becomes casino like.

the answer to your question though is not micro, but macro. the fact of the matter is that we are ruled by the Universe and time is simply a way of indicating what is. the presumption is that we didn't invent time, we are understanding the Universe better and how it is already regulated. so, in essence, we are following the rules of nature by replicating how it works in mathematical precision and that precision, allows us to get better organized.

So, in theory, as we know more and more, we should get more organized, right??? well, one thing is for sure, the more we know, the more things we can map out and discover. maybe the smart thing is to just accept a few things where we are and go on with life. life is not always better with new invention. call it a middle point of all good things. eventually, we will ride the information curve downward when we figure out and continue to break the laws of nature. i am fine living the temporary life that i have.
Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock

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I think the answer is simple: Most planning done in a society relates to not just the time, but the regular time we do things .. breakfast is in the morning, work starts at maybe 8 or 9 .. lunch at 12 or 1 .. work ends 5 or 6 .. dinner around 6 ..sleep sometime after 9 (phone calls after this time might not be welcome.) :) If you ever move anywhere else, you'll fit in a lot better if you don't have to re-learn a different set.

So, even if you have to interact with someone in a different time-zone, once you know the relative time, you know what part of the day they will be in: if it's during the business-day, so it's appropriate for a work-call, or it's after work, so now's a good time to chat, or it's late so best to wait a few hours until they wake.

If you're suggesting having one time and having everyone work to that, that just wouldn't work. Our body clock is too attuned to the movements of the sun. If our society is to have some standards, it's easier to have a consistent set of times for them all, no matter where in the world you are.

Of course, if moving between time-zones was a very very common thing, it might be easier to do it differently. With most people staying in one place for most of the time, then if they travel, often staying at another place for a long time too, it's easier to have the same set of times for stuff wherever you are.

So basically I'm saying it's a good way to co-ordinate our society. ..If you're a hermit, you can go by whatever time system you want. ;)
Source(s):
Just me. :)

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you're right! A silly question! why bother? Maybe you'd like to celebrate New Years, (Christmas), your birthday, and other many events at noon!!! Probably wake up at midnight to go to work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh, dear.
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we already do. it's called internet beat time=]
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You're right! This time zone thing is a rip off! Live would be so much easier!
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The only way it could work is if the World had one time, one clock, but we all slept to a comfortable pattern. So if you get up at 6am currently, you would get up at sunrise, but your clock might say its 3pm. It might then get dark at 5am and you go to bed at 7am going by this new clock system. So, all you really do is change the time and keep the patterns. The benefits? None really, just a lot of confusion!

It would not be possible to all live by 1 clock - all get up at 6am for example, many things cost a lot more to do in the dark, most people would not want to sleep in daylight and live and work in darkness. Electricity bills would sour, more accidents would happen - its a fact that accident rates increase with early sunset in the loner winter months. To live by night you need light, so you use artificial light, using excessive energy, completely negating all the effort to 'save energy and save the planet'. All for what? So we know its the same time in a different country? Just get a new clock or watch, many have timezones on them!

Somebody (I believe it was Swatch) actually created a new time system, though it didn't take off. It was meant to do just what you said, so you could communicate with people in a different time zone and they would know exactly what time you meant.
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I suspect you have never heard of swatch beats ?


http://www.swatch.com/us_en/internettime/itime_howitworks.html
Source(s):
My Brain.
Swatch

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I dont know if you noticed, but China spans 4 time zones, but only has 1 time zone!
It's like if you took the continental united states and made it all 1 time zone. So if you want to see how it works, go to China and ask them how it is working out for them.
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This happens because the sun hits different parts of the world at different times so at 12 o clock here it could be in the middle of the night.
Source(s):
school

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Actually there's proof that light (sunlight) or blue light (like the sky) has a significant effect on emotional and mental well-being. In short, regardless of the number associated with the time, the standard waking and sleeping time will still have to revolve around the sun. It makes some sense then that the numbers reflect the more important principle.
Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_affective_disorder
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm_sleep_disorder

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