So today was the end of daylight savings time and I have to wonder again what is the purpose of this exercise. The only thing I'm certain about setting the clocks backwards for forwards is that it means that everyone's sleep cycle is disturbed for a week or so. This leads to a groggier, crabbier, and less effective work force a couple of weeks out of the year. And the benefits are what exactly? It seems to me that a better solution than forcing the entire country to reset their clocks would be for more businesses to allow flex-time. That way, folks could adjust to their individual circadian rhythms as needed.
I suppose I do know of one benefit of changing the clocks twice a year. For clocks not synchronized with nuclear clocks, periodically adjusting them helps fight time drift. When I attended Purdue, Indiana did not follow daylight savings time and the clocks in different rooms and buildings across campus would gradually drift faster or slower until they were several minutes apart. Other than that, I'm stumped to find a concrete benefit.
What about you? Do you prefer the time shift? Why or why not?
I'm sure you've heard that it's about saving energy -- less electricity use on summer evenings, taking advantage of the sun's longer day. Also, helping commerce as people are still walking around buying stuff at 8pm in the middle of summer.
ReplyDeleteFlex time is a good idea. It makes the rest of us like farmers, who don't give a hoot about the clock if they do the traditional thing of getting up with the sun anyway.
It it is about saving energy, then why did Ben Franklin come up with the idea? The problem with that idea is that in some cases, it actually uses more energy. If there is more daylight at the end of the day, then it is still cold and dark at the beginning of the day. This is a problem for schools with school buses, kids waiting at cold, dark stops and requiring more heat since they can't rely on passive solar heat. Although this might be helped some by moving the dates of the time change back to what they were before this last change.
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