Fall Back, Spring Forward, Is It Worth It Changing Our Clocks For Daylight Savings?
It’s that time of year again as we approach the dreaded start of daylight savings and having to “spring forward” and lose an hour of sleep. Noooooooooooooooo!
People whine, gripe and complain about how it’s so much harder to wake up on Sunday and Monday morning following the annual switch from standard to daylight time, and coping with that sudden loss of an hour. It can be somewhat of a big deal when you’ve got a standard routine and consistent times for falling asleep as well as waking up in the morning.
On the other hand, people generally love it in the fall when we go from daylight time back to standard time, and we “fall back” and gain an extra hour of sleep. Generally speaking, it’s easier on the body when you’re got that extra hour of rest. It’s not so difficult waking up for school and work on the following Monday.
In both cases, it only takes a couple of days for your body to adjust to the time change and get settled into its slightly adjusted routine.
When you consider the fact that as of 2007, standard time only lasts for four months, and that our society has greatly changed since the late 1910s when the shift to daylight time was first used in the U.S., is it still worth it changing our clocks twice a year?
What’s the point with dealing with this twice-yearly switching if it only lasts for four months?
Daylight savings was created as a way to “gain” extra sunlight in the evening hours from late spring to early fall. Although the amount of sunlight doesn’t physically change (apart from the slight variations from one day to the next), by shifting the clocks ahead an hour it allows people to be more productive in the evenings starting that first day. This slightly decreases the amount of energy used to power homes and businesses, and it gives people more time after the traditional work day to still do outdoor activities ranging from tending vegetable gardens to leisure activities such as playing golf.
The biggest factor though is that it helps reduce the amount of energy used across the country if people are more productive outside while there’s still daylight. This was important with helping the country keep production focused on the war effort during World Wars 1 and 2.
That was a different time period though, and our country has changed greatly since that point in time.
So why do we keep dealing with this switching of time back and forth?
If anything, I’d argue that we should just stay on daylight time and just keep it that way year-round. We’re already on daylight time for eight months each year, so just make the change and keep it that way for all twelve months.
The biggest problem is that there’s no single solution that benefits everybody across the entire country. People living up north have different routines during the summer and winter than those living down south. Because of its higher latitude northern cities like Detroit and Milwaukee already receive a greater amount of daylight during the summer than southern cities like Atlanta and New Orleans. On the other hand, those northern cities receive less daylight during the winter than southern cities.
Another problem concerns kids in school, especially little kids. Many parents argue that they don’t want their kids walking to the bus stop in the morning while it’s still dark outside. Of course, this is really an exaggerated problem as, A) Most parents also walk to the bus stop, and they are the ones keeping their kids out of trouble, and B) Parents need to teach their kids to be aware of dangers and how to handle them, such as cars driving along a neighborhood street. My brother and I never had any problem in the winter walking to the elementary school bus stop while it was dark outside. Only the kindergarten parents walked their kids to the bus stop, and that was only for the first day of school. After that they were on their own. And guess what? Nothing bad ever happened.
Otherwise, it seems like more people than ever are more productive during the evening hours than they are during the early morning. Because of that major trend in society and the fact that we’re already on daylight time for the vast majority of the year, we should just stay that way all year. It would work fine for most people across the country.
While I think that the country would be better off on daylight time, even if it stayed on standard time, it just needs to remain consistent. Stop this switching back and forth, especially for such a short time period. It just annoys too many people in the end.