99% of those people don't live in Antarctica though. Cabin Fever is a real thing and it can drive you mad, also the lack of sunlight or darkness for months on end really fucks with you. I worked 12 hour shifts 7-7 for 3 years, 6 months of day shift, 6 months of night shift. My night shift started in June and went until mid February. During the fall when the day got shorter I started to feel shitty because I would have like an hour or two of daylight, usually when I was commuting home at 8 am and ready to go to sleep. When it turned to winter, I would only see daylight for maybe 15-30 minutes a day, right before Christmas ,when the days were the shortest I didn't see daylight at all for maybe a day or two and it really started to make me feel like shit, and this was in Manhattan, not the Antarctic, where your only friends are Emperor Penguins and the other people you see 24/7 for 6 months, regardless if you love them or hate them. Even when I switched back to the day shift at the end of winter and the very early spring it still sucked because the days will still short. I would walk into work just as the sun was rising and leave long after it set. I also worked in a windowless room (a NOC, I work in IT), so even when the sun was up my only time to see it was on my break, and I wasn't too keen on hanging out outside for an hour when it was 45F.

The only equivalent to Antarctica I can think of in the civilized world is remote Siberia during the winter, far Northern Canada, or the far north of Alaska. It's straight up miserable for a lot of them down there. It's essentially one step below being on the ISS (or in a Fallout style vault haha).

I also don't think it's an excuse, I do however think it's the truth. Put a bunch of people in a club or bar, someone will get kicked out at some point in the night. Now, what if no one can leave that bar without dying of exposure within minutes?