How to store UNIX timestamps with MySQL : <p><strong>Some background:</strong></p>

<p>My website depends heavily on coordinating users across all kinds of different time zones.</p>

<p>I am using Carbon to handle my time zone conversions and calculations on the server side and moment.js on the client.</p>

<p>As a result the design choice was made that all date times (e.g. the start time of an event) would be stored as unix timestamps.</p>

<p><strong>Problem</strong></p>

<p>I am a bit confused by the definition of a "timestamp". In PHPMyAdmin the timestamp is not a unix timestamp but rather a date format:</p>

<pre><code>2016-10-06 20:50:46
</code></pre>

<p>So if you want to have a default field of the current timestamp then you get the current date in GMT.</p>

<p>This makes things more complicated to convert back into a users timezone compared to a unix timestamp integer...</p>

<p><strong>Question:</strong></p>

<p>What field type should I store my unix timestamps as, currently I am using <code>int(11)</code> with a default of <code>none</code>. By extension... is there a way to store the current unix timestamp (e.g. 1475971200) by default in MySQL?</p>
