The historical context is that most of the world wants the time to correlate to the sun. Noon is when the sun is (about) overhead, and midnight is when the sun is on the opposite side of the planet. We also have unique daylight savings practices, even within time zones. There is a lot of political discussion that causes this. China, for example, has one single time zone even though geographically it spans about 3 "real" time zones.
We do have a "world time" as well, if you would like to live by it. It's called UTC.
Personally, time zones help me to relate to others in a different part of the world. If I say I got up at 5am, someone on the other side of the world could say "Why did you sleep in so late? I eat lunch at 6am". With a single time, we would need to translate the numbers for local interpretation, otherwise they have no meaning.
We do have a "world time" as well, if you would like to live by it. It's called UTC.
Personally, time zones help me to relate to others in a different part of the world. If I say I got up at 5am, someone on the other side of the world could say "Why did you sleep in so late? I eat lunch at 6am". With a single time, we would need to translate the numbers for local interpretation, otherwise they have no meaning.