I know this is a bit of a "dry" topic, but on Reddit there are occasionally debates about things like "Metric" vs "Imperial or "12 vs 24 hours clock". Sometimes MM/DD/YYYY vs DD.MM.YYYY also pops up.
In these debates each side emphasizes that their preferred format is better than the other because it’s “how humans naturally process dates”.
This in my opinion kind of dismisses the fact that how we process information is largely a result of enculturation and neuroplasticity. Same how readers of languages where they write from right to left will find it more natural to read from right to left as opposed to left to right.
Same how all 3 of YMD, MDY and DMY can be equally natural to someone depending on which format they were exposed to since childhood.
Now the reason why I’m asking this, is because I come from a country that heavily uses YYYY-MM-DD everywhere, from official documents to everyday life. And I was very largely surprised that this is not the case in the majority of the world. Furthermore, when I asked some people in my country if they like it when the date is written with day first and they answered that they don’t.
For me also, since I’m so used to seeing YMD, DMY feels flipped. Also since I’m so used to seeing the month in front of the day, I always for a second accidentally read it as MDY. Not because I ever use that format but because I automatically scan 2 two-digit numbers in a date as month and day.
Another reason why most of the people who use YMD prefer it is because it scales from the biggest unit to the smallest like any other data measurement. For example time (hours -> minutes -> seconds), distance (bigger -> smaller) or numbers themselves. So reading DMY feels a bit like reading a value backwards. (45:19 for instance).
And the 3rd reason is because it puts what we perceive to be the most critical unit to the front. When you’re reading an article about a past event for example, I don’t particularly care about exact day or even the month when a 100 year old event happened.
Same when telling a story about special events. What people usually mention is the year at the very beginning and then the month to imagine the seasonality. The exact day matters so little to my image of that time as to be omitted entirely.
When looking at the expiration dates of long-lasting products, having the year first gives the most important bit at a glance and you know whether the product is to be thrown away soon or good for a long while.
And especially in our digital age when the past content often resurfaces to the present moment, the year seems to be crucial to identify whether a video, an article or any content is recent or nostalgia.
That said, since I grew up seeing YMD everywhere, I’m fully aware that these preferences may simply be the result of exposure rather than something universal.
So I’m genuinely curious:
How often do you personally encounter YYYY-MM-DD in everyday life (outside of programming)?
Do you see it regularly, occasionally, or almost never — and if you do see it often, does it feel intuitive to you?