Chronotypes in the US: Influence of longitude position in a time zone

ABSTRACT

The availability of electrical light has altered modern light exposure, affecting the synchronization process (‘entrainment’) of the circadian clock to the natural light–dark cycle. The discrepancy between the natural light–dark cycle and self-selected light exposure has raised the question whether humans entrain to sun time (as most organisms do) vs. social time. None of the studies addressing this question have been conducted in the US in a large-scale, nationally representative sample. In this brief report, we aimed at estimating the relationship between individual chronotype (the result of the entrainment process) and longitude position in a time zone, using 12 years (2003–2014) of pooled diary data (n = 50,753) from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS). Chronotype was estimated based on mid-sleep time on weekends (MSF^We), a proxy that was previously shown to replicate known age and sex differences in chronotype in the ATUS. Longitude position was derived from state-level information (e.g., average state border outline). Regression results showed a progressive delay in MSF^We from east to west within three of the four US continental time zones (delay per degree of longitude): Eastern, 1.8 min; Central, 1.2 min; Mountain, 2.4 min (all p < .01). The findings suggest that humans entrain to sun time, leading to an increasing discrepancy between social time and biological time (“circadian misalignment”) towards the west of a time zone. Such a misalignment induced by where people live within a time zone may affect a large share of the population, with implications for health and safety.

KEYWORDS:

• Circadian disruption
• sleep
• social jetlag
• geographical location
• diurnal preference
• MCTQ

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data are available from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) database. The ATUS multi-year data files used in this study can be downloaded from the ATUS database: https://www.bls.gov/tus/datafiles_0314. htm. The webpage also provides a detailed User’s Guide with information about variable names, data coding, editing, weights, etc. Information to contact the ATUS staff with help requests can be found here: https://www.bls.gov/tus/#contact.

Author contributions

Study conception and design: DF DAL

Data curation: DAL

Analysis and interpretation of data: DF DAL

Writing:

-Drafting of manuscript: DF

-Reviewing & editing: DF DAL

Visualization: DF

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a Harvard-Liberty Mutual Postdoctoral Fellowship to DF.