Daylight Savings Time

[Vet-To-Pet]

Hello Everyone~
Can anyone explain to me why we continue to change our clocks twice a year? Wasn't the original purpose somehow related to WW II, or possibly something to do with agricultural/farmers harvest time? I've heard both (vague) explanations a long time ago & don't know if either is actually true, but even if there was a valid reason once upon a time, why do we continue to mess with the time changes & disrupt everyone's lives twice a year...? Seems to me there's absolutely no good reason to go back & forth, upsetting everyone's circadian rhythms (I've forgotten how to spell & don't feel like checking to see if I spelled that correctly---somebody, let me know) every year, not once, but twice. Why??????
Please help me understand, I'm just a mere mortal with simple needs & simple questions. Thank you.:worship:
Smiles,
Paula/vet-To-Pet

[Moon]

As i understand it, many people realized they liked Daylight Saving so much they wanted to keep
it. That being the case, wouldn't it make better sense to keep it year-'round or--if, for some reason,
it could be for only half the year--to use it in winter, when we need it? Well, when the San Francisco
Board of Supes announced their intent to respond to the year-'round request, they were deluged
with mail from the parents of school-aged children, saying their children had to stand at the bus stop
so early in the morning that if DST were in effect all year, in winter they'd be standing
(on a big, American city's street) in the pitch dark.

Hello Everyone~
Can anyone explain to me why we continue to change our clocks twice a year? Wasn't the original purpose somehow related to WW II, or possibly something to do with agricultural/farmers harvest time? I've heard both (vague) explanations a long time ago & don't know if either is actually true, but even if there was a valid reason once upon a time, why do we continue to mess with the time changes & disrupt everyone's lives twice a year...? Seems to me there's absolutely no good reason to go back & forth, upsetting everyone's circadian rhythms (I've forgotten how to spell & don't feel like checking to see if I spelled that correctly---somebody, let me know) every year, not once, but twice. Why??????
Please help me understand, I'm just a mere mortal with simple needs & simple questions. Thank you.

[Moon]

You did spell circadian correctly.

[Dynamique]

Paula, thank you for bringing up this issue! The whole daylight "savings" time thing is a giant inconvenience and an assault on our physiology. It gets worse every year since just about anything electronic has a clock in it, and most of them are not exactly easy to re-set.

Curiously, the concept of daylight savings time and re-setting the clocks was first cooked up by Benjamin Franklin when he was ambassador to France. Ben did a lot of amazing things and had many great ideas, but this was not one of them.

Here's a related question: how can we get rid of this practice? It was part of that awful energy bill of 2005 -- they changed the start date to try to use less energy for lighting or some such.


Hello Everyone~
Can anyone explain to me why we continue to change our clocks twice a year?

[Barry]

Gosh, I am SO surprised to hear that some people don't like DST! I love it! It's great to get an earlier start in the day in the light part of the year, but not when its still dark. It seems very natural to me. It's our abstract version of time and how we live our day that's not in harmony with nature that is the real problem! DST is a minor nod to the natural world.


Paula, thank you for bringing up this issue! The whole daylight "savings" time thing is a giant inconvenience and an assault on our physiology. It gets worse every year since just about anything electronic has a clock in it, and most of them are not exactly easy to re-set.
...

[enigmaha]

Gosh, I am SO surprised to hear that some people don't like DST! I love it! It's great to get an earlier start in the day in the light part of the year, but not when its still dark. It seems very natural to me. It's our abstract version of time and how we live our day that's not in harmony with nature that is the real problem! DST is a minor nod to the natural world.
______________________________________________________________
This discussion about being disgruntled over Daylight Saving Time (Saving is singular not plural) called to mind this writing by one of the earliest public grumblers about the effect that 'clocks' had upon him.

PS. By the way, Arizona and Hawaii don't switch to Daylight Saving Time. They decided they don't need to save anymore daylight; they already have plenty.

Against Sundials

The gods confound the man who first found out
How to distinguish hours! Confound him, too,
Who in this place set up a sundial,
To cut and hack my days so wretchedly
Into small portions! When I was a boy,
My belly was my sundial -- one surer,
Truer, and more exact than any of them.
This dial told me when 'twas proper time
To go to dinner, when I had aught to eat;
But nowadays, why even when I have,
I can't fall to unless the sun gives leave.
The town's so full of these confounded dials
The greatest part of the inhabitants,
Shrunk up with hunger, crawl along the street.

- Plautus
(c.254-184 BC)

[Dynamique]

The problem is not so much which "time" we're using (standard vs. saving), it is the changing of the clocks and therefore changing of our sleep cycles 2 times a year. What we now know about sleep-wake cycles and neurology makes it clear that this arbitrary change is unhealthy.

There was a research project about 10 years ago that found that the number of car accidents in the morning commute hours increases significantly in the week following the time change in the spring. The cause was physiological: a few days before, people were sleeping or going through the wake-up portion of their circadian cycle during the time that now they were trying to drive. Their bodies and brains were still half asleep and reaction times slowed, etc.

The whole clock-based "standardized" time thing is arbitrary to begin with; it's part of the industrial age need to turn people into machines and divide the 24-hour day into 3 equal shifts. So, if we must be mechanized, at least use a consistent arbitrary time scheme!


Gosh, I am SO surprised to hear that some people don't like DST! I love it! It's great to get an earlier start in the day in the light part of the year, but not when its still dark. It seems very natural to me. It's our abstract version of time and how we live our day that's not in harmony with nature that is the real problem! DST is a minor nod to the natural world.

[Neshamah]

I don't adjust my clocks anymore. When I am home, it is always standard time. I just tell myself that I work 7:00 to 4:30 instead of 8:00 to 5:30. I also do not adjust my sleeping schedule. I can do a lot with an extra hour before work during standard time.

Still, we should get rid of it. If everyone likes getting up earlier, then it should be businesses and individuals that adjust their opening and closing times, not Congress.

~ Neshamah