But very close to this worry, my biggest pet peeve about Daylight Savings Time is this:
Lots of people love to hate on Daylight Savings Time.
You may have seen this brilliant meme:
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Count Rugan, fictional inventor of Daylight Savings Time"]
[/caption]Facebook has facilitated the process of hating on DST by allowing memes like this to spread quickly. A year or two ago, I saw one with a picture of a Native American proclaiming that only the government would cut a foot off of one end of a rope, attach it to the other end, and think that the rope is longer.
It seems like lots of people look for, find, and take opportunities to make Daylight Savings time sound like a stupid waste of time.
I am writing today to defend Daylight Savings Time. Sure, hating it is pretty popular, and it is not perfect, but I have come to the conclusion that it actually makes sense.
Here is why: throughout the year, the earth's tilt, revolution on its axis, and orbit around the sun combine to make pretty big changes in the moments the sun rises and sets in different parts of the year, and the amount of time your particular corner of the earth is bathed in sunlight. But, being creatures of habit who have semi-regular work schedules, it is hard to take advantage of the extra sunlight in the summer. Unless we decided to suddenly start getting up earlier during the summer, we'd waste a lot of daylight before we even get up in the morning.
Therefore, we have Daylight Savings Time. (It inconveniences us two days a year---actually the inconvenience isn't that terrible since our electronics change our clocks for us!) Therefore, without having to change our sleep and work schedules, the hours that the sun is in the sky coincide better with the hours that we are awake, and we have more sunlight after we get off work in the evening.
Example: Let's say you get up at 6 a.m. and go to bed at 11 p.m. If the sun rises at 5 a.m. and sets at 8 p.m., then an hour of sunlight is gone by the time you woke. And then you get home from work at 6 p.m., and two hours later, there is no more sun. That gives you only two hours to work in the garden, take your kids to the park, ride a bike, or test the latest solar-powered invention you're working on.
But let's say we take one hour from one night when clocks spring forward. Suddenly, you and the sun both get up at the same time---you can enjoy every single moment of sunshine (except for those eight hours you are trapped in the office...). When you get home at 6 p.m., you have three hours to experience the sunshine before it sets.
I don't know whether the hours I cited above bear any resemblance to real life, but they illustrate the principle.
The next time you feel the urge to cry out against Daylight Savings Time sucking away an hour of your life, please remember two things:
1. My argument above, and
2. That hour will be given back to you later this year, when everything falls back into place.
