Ian Benson
Daylight Saving Time can seem like something of a joke, because admittedly, it is rather silly. It is a relic of a bygone era when America was an agrarian society and that extra hour of sunlight was needed to work the fields in the summer, something few do anymore. But that doesn’t mean the system no longer has benefits that merit its continued existence.
The statistical impact of DST is hard to pinpoint. Some studies indicate that DST reduces electricity usage while other studies indicate the energy usage increases during this period. And there are other studies that show the health impacts or the number of car crashes during this period and how they vary. Yet these cases aren’t the important aspects of DST.
No, the importance and rational for keeping DST is that it gives us sunlight in the time when it is most appreciated: the summer. Imagine all those summer nights you spent outside, enjoying the company of friends or whatever it was you were doing outside at that hour. Now imagine the sun going down earlier than you expected, earlier than you wanted, leaving you in the dark. Possibly even alone in the dark.
Summer barbeques, pool parties, pickup football games and other forms of general merriment, all brought to an early end because the sun has ducked behind the tree line an hour before, all because we live in a theoretical world where DST is no longer practiced.
In addition, moving time forward an hour to lengthen the day also makes sunrise occur just a little bit later, which has its own benefits. Chief amongst those is that that, in doing so, it lengthens a little bit of the night ever so slightly so you don’t have to deal with the sun coming up when you’ve yet to stagger home.
Also, the only time DST really impacts our lives and comes to the forefront is when it’s time to change the clocks forwards or backwards, and even then it’s only to complain about having to change our clocks because no one actually knows how to change their clock and instead just let it sit for six months until it’s correct again.
The rest of the time, it just happens without a second thought unless we’re losing that hour of sleep. And let’s be honest, we were probably going to waste that missing hour browsing through Facebook.