Arizona and Hawaii. Most of us have these at the top of our list for places to visit and possibly even live someday. But did you know there is an extra perk to these locations? They do not follow daylight saving time (DST). They never have to remember DST is coming. They never gain or lose an hour. They never wander around their houses changing the varied clocks. They never have to acknowledge DST exists.
Do I seem a little resentful? Before I was, but not now. I decided this year will be different. Previously when daylight saving time came up I would fixate on what DST meant this time. Are we springing forward or leaping back? Do I get one more hour of sleep in the morning? Will it be hard to fall asleep tonight? Will I get one more hour of daylight in the evenings?
Will the sun be up now when I drive to school or work? Does that mean 6 a.m. will really be 7 a.m. now, but still feel like 6 a.m.? Will 10 p.m. at night now be 9 p.m. and I will be getting tired sooner? On and on and on…
The day arrived, March 9, DST for the first time in 2014. And I did not ask those questions. Yeah. However, up crept a different set of questions:
Is it “daylightS saving time”, “daylight savingS time” or “daylight saving time”?
What really is DST?
When did it start?
Does everyone else think it is an advantage and not a pain in the (blank) as I do?
Therefore, I did on-line research, wasted my time and found these somewhat interesting points. (If nothing else, this information may help you kick butt on Google Play trivia games.)
First, it is called “daylight saving time”. There is no ‘s’ at the end of any of the words.
And according to timeanddate.com, “daylight saving time was originally put in place and was often referred to as ‘Summer Time’. It is a way of making better use of the daylight in the evenings by setting the clocks forward one hour during the longer days of summer, and back again in the fall.”
We have Benjamin Franklin and George Vernon Hudson to thank for the scheme of daylight saving time.
Franklin first conjured up the idea in 1784 during his work in Paris. Wikipedia reports, “Franklin published an essay titled ‘An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light’ that proposed to economize the use of candles by rising earlier to make use of the morning sunlight.”
Over one hundred years later, in 1895, Hudson, an entomologist from New Zealand, proposed our modern day DST process. Still, DST was not employed until April 1916 in Germany and Austria-Hungary. It was a component of their WWII tactics. By the 1970s daylight saving time was more consistently used throughout the world mainly due to the energy crisis.
Most of us refer to the two instances each year the time changes as daylight saving time. But actually DST begins in the northern hemisphere (where we live) between March–April and ends between September–November. And then “Standard Time” begins in the northern hemisphere between September–November and ends between March–April. Thus, DST is once each year. The other clock change is considered going back to Standard Time.
The entire world handles DST differently. If you want a migraine headache, read on-line at Wikipedia.com, the “Daylight Saving Time Around the World” entry. Here’s one example of the mixed use of DST, “In South America most countries north of the continent near the equator do not observe DST, whileChile, Paraguay, Uruguay and southern parts of Brazil do observe DST. Chile and Paraguay start DST on the last Sunday of April, Uruguay starts on the second Sunday of March and southern Brazil starts on the third Sunday in February.” Is your head throbbing yet?
Finally while browsing the web on this topic it would seem much deliberation has transpired on DST. Timeanddate.com has an article, “The Never-ending Daylight Saving Debate”.
Within the commentary various sources and regions of the world list the DST advantages (for example: less road injuries, more daylight to complete outside chores and more participation in recreational activities) and the disadvantages (for example: social costs of increased pollution, confusion of travelers and safety fears of dark mornings). Can you imagine how much effort has been spent on this topic? Not to be too “pun-ny”… but isn’t it a waste of TIME?
So, what did you do on March 9? And post daylight saving time change on March 10? Did you burn valuable brain cells trying to understand how it was changing, what it would mean to you and did others pull you in their inquiries and scenarios? If you did, was it worth it?
Me? Just now I decided to define my own ‘daylight saving time’ process. No questioning it, no debating it, changing the clocks and moving my life forward. That is how I will save time overall at day (and night) during DST!