Automatic 60-minute clock adjustment on mobile devices A state of confusion among many due to the “automatic adjustment”

A number of citizens in Jordan were surprised when their smartphone clocks advanced automatically by 60 minutes after midnight on Thursday–Friday, amid widespread belief that daylight saving time had begun, as in previous years.

This sudden change caused confusion among many people due to the automatic shift in time, sparking widespread interaction on social media. It later became clear that the issue was not individual, but affected a large number of users, and extended to other internet-connected devices such as electric vehicles and smart systems that rely on network-based time.

Automatic update

The reason for this confusion is that some devices automatically update their time based on outdated systems or settings linked to time zones that rely on switching between summer and winter time, which led to this unexpected change, despite there being no official decision to return to daylight saving time at this moment.

In 2022, the Jordanian government decided to cancel the winter time system and adopt daylight saving time throughout the year, in a move aimed at unifying time and avoiding seasonal changes.

In light of the recurrence of such cases, experts call for checking time and date settings on smart devices and disabling the automatic update option if necessary, to avoid any possible disruption in schedules, especially when relying on internet-connected systems or time-sensitive operations.