By: Farrah Morris
Daylight Savings is almost here. When? Who knows! But at this point, is it really necessary?
Daylight Savings. It is dreaded in the spring and enjoyed in the fall.
Practiced mainly in North America and Europe, it is the process of advancing clocks one hour in the summer and adjusting them back to standard time in autumn.
However, Daylight Savings is unnecessary. Why?
Firstly, Daylight Savings is not even used in the majority of the world’s countries. Equatorial countries do not use it because their sunrises do not vary enough to justify it. Generally, all of Asia and Africa do not observe or practice it either.
Although some may have practiced it at some point, they have either abolished it or have permanently shifted their time to Daylight Savings, so it is constantly “summer hours”.
Currently, the practice of Daylight Savings is mostly only in North America and Europe and a few small regions of South America such as Southern Brazil.
If some countries want to permanently change it to Daylights Savings, go ahead and do so, having only summer times is fine. The problem is changing it twice a year, especially when most people do not even know when Daylight Savings occurs.
Not only that, but it also occurs at two in the morning this year. Two. Because that is a perfect time to suddenly shift the time forward or backward depending on the season and throw everyone off course.
Secondly, the reasoning behind Daylight Savings is ridiculous.
George Hudson proposed it so that during the summer evening daylight lasts longer while giving up normal sunrises.
Although this sounds good in theory, continually doing this throughout the year, especially when people are not aware of it, causes complications.
Oftentimes, Daylight Savings disrupts sleep patterns as people who tend to go to bed earlier now have evening sunlight that keeps them up later than they are used to, and it can be especially detrimental if they have to wake up early due to their jobs.
It has also been cited that the switch in Daylight Savings during spring can actually cause sleep deprivation in some cases and can disrupt someone’s sleep cycle for weeks.
Not only that, but Daylight Savings can also disrupt medical devices and even heavy equipment.
For some machines that are set to do certain tasks at a certain time, the switch to Daylight Savings could end up causing a disaster or adverse effects when the synchronization is lost.
In 1993, a case in Germany actually notes how the shift in Daylight Savings caused a machine to cool molten steel for an hour less than the required duration, causing molten steel to splatter everywhere.
Daylight Savings, on paper, does not sound bad. Having more daylight to workout or enjoy daytime activities or just stay out later sounds great, especially in the summer when teenagers have plenty of free time!
The problem lies in the fact that it complicates many things, with people having to manually change clocks around the house, losing sleep, even people missing events or flights because they forget about the time change.
Overall, it would be much more beneficial if countries either abolished Daylight Savings entirely or switched the time to permanently be an hour ahead. This would give everyone the peace of mind around spring and fall and not worry about Daylight Savings.
