Summary

The article argues that adopting permanent Daylight Saving Time (DST) may not be beneficial and suggests that Standard Time is a better choice for year-round observance.

Abstract

The article "Do We Really Want Permanent Daylight Savings Time?" presents a case against the permanent adoption of DST in the United States. It discusses the historical context of DST and its impact on daily life, including the potential health and safety risks associated with the biannual time changes. The author points out that while DST provides extra sunlight in the evenings during summer months, it results in very dark mornings during winter, which could negatively affect people's routines and mental health. The article cites previous attempts at permanent DST, such as during the Nixon administration, which faced public backlash due to the extended darkness in the mornings. The author suggests that sticking to Standard Time would align with natural circadian rhythms, reduce the risks associated with time changes, and provide a more consistent balance of light throughout the year. The article concludes by advocating for the elimination of time changes and a return to permanent Standard Time to avoid the negative consequences of DST.

Opinions

The author believes that Standard Time is preferable to Daylight Saving Time because it aligns better with natural human rhythms and avoids extremely dark winter mornings.
The article suggests that the extra hour of sunlight at the end of the day during DST is not worth the trade-off of dark winter mornings.
The author argues that time changes due to DST are a nuisance and can have negative effects on health and safety, including a 6% increase in auto accidents following the switch to DST.
The article indicates that our ancestors' sleep patterns were influenced by sunlight, and thus, permanent DST could disrupt our evolutionary adapted circadian rhythms.
The author points out that the proliferation of artificial light has altered human behavior, but many still dislike waking up and commuting in darkness.
The article notes that the switch to DST causes disruption and exhaustion for many, while the return to Standard Time provides relief and aligns better with the work and school schedules.
The author is critical of the idea of permanent DST, referring to it as the 'Rising in Darkness Act,' emphasizing the extended darkness in the mornings that would result.
The article suggests that by sticking to Standard Time, people would still enjoy ample daylight in the evenings during the summer without the negative impacts of DST.
The author advocates for the elimination of time changes to avoid the associated risks and to maintain consistency in daily routines.

Do We Really Want Permanent Daylight Savings Time?

Standard Time is better.

We may have changed our clocks for one of the last times.

We are very close to having Daylight Savings Time (DST) become permanent in the United States. The Daylight Protection Act has been unanimously passed in the Senate. If the bill makes it through the House of Representatives, a winter will befall us in 2024 that will feel unlike any that has come before in our lifetimes.

DST gives us an extra hour of sunlight at the end of the day in the warmer months. This allows us to maximize daylight across the usual waking hours. Standard Time shifts the clock so that we can have sunlight early in the day when cold returns and dawn arrives later and later in the morning.

I appreciate the extra hour of sun in the warmer months. I wonder, however, what it will be like in the winter if we permanently skip the adjustment that grants us light in the early morning.

Time changes are nuisances that can have negative effects on our health and safety. I say we drop them. However, I think it might be a better idea to stick with Standard Time than lock in on DST.

Who likes getting up before dawn?

Our ancestors rose and retired with the sun. While it’s conceivable that they may have spent hours of the day foraging for the wood so that they could burn it for a short time after sunset and extend the light of the day, it seems unlikely. That they would spend the night looking for wood to have a fire going before dawn seems even more dubious. There probably was never a time when humans rose and spent time awake in the pitch dark with any regularity. That changed, of course, with the proliferation of artificial light. We now can function during the hours that the sun is not in the sky to light our way. Regardless, many of us still aren’t fans of waking up when it’s dark out, let alone setting off to work while it’s pitch black outside. Daylight Savings Time makes this worse.

Every year most of us change our clocks two times. This has been the case since 1918 when DST was introduced to maximize the sunlight we can enjoy during our waking hours. Every spring we get an extra hour of daylight as we move into DST. We lose an hour of sleep on the night of the changeover, but we are rewarded with an extra hour of light at the end of the day at a time of year when the day is so long that we can rise in daylight and still have several hours of it in the evening.

In the fall, when most of us come back to Standard Time (Hawaii and most of Arizona already stay on Standard Time all year round, ignoring DST), we enjoy an extra hour of sleep on the night of the change and the days get dark earlier. The switch makes the sun seem to come up earlier, too, however, just as morning darkness seems to be creeping right up to the start of the workday when children are walking to school.

I find the spring switch into DST knocks me for a loop for a good week or two. I eventually get used to it, and I appreciate the extra hour of the sun during the summer, but I’m exhausted for days losing that one hour of sleep. I can see why people would want to eliminate the time changes and also to hold on to as much sunlight at the end of the day as possible. I suspect most of us enjoy driving home in the dark at the end of the workday about as much as we enjoy getting up before dawn. It can feel demoralizing to still be on your way back from work and have the day feel as if it has already passed.

The issue I see with staying on DST is that it means the darkness will go very deep into the morning.

In fact, Richard Nixon already established a permanent DST in 1974, and, according to Remi Odejimi, in his Newsweek article of March 12, 2022, What states in the USA do not use Daylight Savings Time? the measure, “Lost support due to the dark winter mornings that come with DST.” Dante Chinni, writing for NBC News suggests, “The act might as well be called the ‘Rising in Darkness Act.’”

Are slightly longer summer evenings worth long, dark winter mornings?

Where I live, in Toronto, darkness does not fall until well after 9 pm on summer nights, thanks to DST. The sun comes up hours before my morning alarm sounds, and so my entire day of work occurs in the daytime, with plenty of sun leftover for evening walks or socializing.

In the autumn, during the waning days of DST, sunrise doesn’t come until very close to the time that children are walking to school. Many people leave for work when it is still completely dark outside. It is only with the return to Standard Time that we get relief from the doldrums of the cold, dark winter night carrying on into the start of the workday. Without this change back to Standard Time, the dark mornings will be even longer.

Here, in Toronto, I foresee students walking through the neighbourhood in pitch darkness to catch their school buses for much of the winter if we stay on DST.

Plus, recall the concept that our ancestors generally rose and retired with the sun. If we subscribe to the circadian rhythms passed down to us through evolution, then we have to anticipate that having an even darker morning for several months of the year could have considerable effects on levels of seasonal affective disorder.

What if we stay on Standard Time instead of DST?

What would we be sacrificing if we said goodbye to Daylight Saving Time, altogether? It’s not as if we would be forcing darkness upon ourselves on summer evenings, as light is already expanding well past the dinner hour before we even make the switch to DST. In fact, by the time the warmest months of the year come about, it will still be light out well beyond 8 pm in the evenings in my part of the world.

While it is true that this means that the sun will rise earlier, many of us already use shades and blackout curtains to protect our sleep from the early morning light of the sun. This won’t change. We’ll already have our curtains drawn.

We’ll still rise in sunlight and complete our work before sunset.

Permanent employment of Standard Time will eliminate the annoying pseudo jetlag that accompanies each of the time changes. It will also eliminate the 6% increase in auto accidents that Science Daily says is brought about, annually, following the switch to DST.

While I do see a potential issue in that there are some electronic devices that have the switch to DST preprogrammed, causing some clocks to go out of sync, this will happen whether we lock in on DST or Standard Time.

Dropping time changes is good, but Standard Time is the one to stick with.

Nobody enjoys changing the clocks. Nor do we benefit from the adjustment time it takes our bodies to travel, overnight, into the artificial time zone that has been artificially created to manipulate our use of the sun.

We all like extra sunlight, and that includes in the morning. I believe we get the best of both worlds if we eliminate time changes, but go back to permanent Standard Time.

Imagine a world where we are no longer manufacturing dangerous driving scenarios brought about by sleep loss arising from time changes. We get to rise later in the cold winter months and still enjoy great amounts of evening sunlight during the warmest months. To me, it’s a no-brainer.

We need to drop time changes and lock back into Standard Time, not Daylight Savings Time.

*****

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