Compounding this crisis is an economy in shambles: COVID-19 has destroyed an estimated 30 million jobs since March and unemployment today sits at 8.4%. Research suggests that the hour switch necessitated by using daylight time for two-thirds of the year and standard time for one-third of it may, as a result of the circadian rhythm disruptions, increase car accidents, increase the risk of heart problems and have long-term negative impacts on sleep habits, which can lead to other health issues. Other data suggests daylight saving time increases public safety, as robbery rates drop significantly every spring when the clocks are adjusted. The rest of us have already been on a kind of flex time for the last 12 months anyway. The time change also throws off how early farmers can do … Studies show it leads to more car accidents and heart attacks—the latter by as much as 24 percent. The sun gives us Vitamin D which promotes bone growth. Understanding the history of DST strengthens the case for its future. Our economy is on the ropes, and the number of Americans reporting mental illness has reached record levels. The idea behind DST is to conserve – or “save” – natural light, since spring, summer, and early fall days typically get dark later in … There’s just one catch: states can’t make the switch without federal approval. Why do we do this to ourselves? So if we worked flexible hours when the sun came up really late, what would it matter? Please attempt to sign up again. You'll be safer on the road. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our. That sounds small, but it is significant across time, especially when you consider current concerns about climate change and the stability of the three major power grids in the U.S. Other data suggests daylight saving time increases public safety, as robbery rates drop significantly every spring when the clocks are adjusted. You can unsubscribe at any time. As the name suggests, it’s a practice designed to make better use of the varying daylight hours as the Earth orbits the sun. Since the lockdowns began, the number of adults reporting symptoms of anxiety and depression has more than tripled. So why would we change our clocks this November knowing it will only make the situation worse? The main argument I see for Daylight Saving Time is that it gives us more evening hours with daylight. It was invented to make the best use of daylight hours. This is the time standard we observe for most of the year anyway—from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November. Safety is one of the more solid arguments for keeping the lighter evenings of DST. Why not keep daylight saving time going year-round? But not this year. Subscribe for just $25. An unexpected error has occurred with your sign up. Given the obvious benefits of making DST permanent, no wonder there’s a groundswell of support for making this change across US time zones. So, why have perpetual daylight saving instead of perpetual standard time? The concept of extending daylight hours to conserve power has been around since World War I. For months, Republicans and Democrats have been at loggerheads over a broad stimulus package—but a permanent switch to DST would be a stimulus package all on its own. That’s why Congress must act now. IE 11 is not supported. Daylight saving time is the seasonal surprise that borrows an hour from our circadian rhythm in the spring and gives it back in the fall. You have a limited number of free articles. The Uniform Time Act of 1966 provided the basic framework for alternating between daylight saving time and standard time, which we now observe in the United States. (It’s a myth that the practice meets the needs of farmers during growing and harvest seasons; actual farmers tend to hate it.) Making DST permanent, however, would push back sunsets to reasonable hours, encouraging shopping and retail sales during the winter months. This is the time standard we observe for most of the … © 2021 TIME USA, LLC. There's no question that driving when it's light out is easier. Shelgikar: If you’re able to make small, incremental changes in your sleep and wake times for a few days leading up to the start of Daylight Saving Time, rather than making an abrupt change of a full hour, it can ease that transition. We want to hear what you THINK. Luckily, the … Studies have found that DST contributes to improved road safety by reducing pedestrian fatalities by 13% during dawn and dusk hours. Subscribe for just $25. This year, and every year hereafter, we should keep our clocks fixed to daylight saving time. But Congress can't seem to resist tinkering with it. Think about how much you enjoy feeling like you got that extra hour of sleep, even though you know deep down that it is not true that there is an “extra” hour. In the process, I passed more bills into law than anyone alive today. Benjamin Franklin created the concept of daylight saving time, according to NASA, and it has been used throughout much of the U.S., Canada and Europe since World War I. STOCK/Sipa via AP Images A person holds a clock in Nantes, Western France on Oct. 26 2017. Be honest, how many times have you absolutely had to answer an email before sundown? Clocks are man-made. Making DST permanent would be a shot in the arm for our economy and a boon to millions of Americans suffering from anxiety and depression. California voters passed Proposition 7 in 2018 by 62% to change daylight saving time to make it full-time. To better understand the situation, it's best to look at why we do these annual clock changes. While there’s no panacea for these problems, one simple step by Congress could help alleviate the pain: Passing federal legislation to make daylight saving time (DST) permanent. You have 3 free articles left. All of that is to say, I know a good, bipartisan solution when I see one—and the Sunshine Protection Act is exactly that. For the few people who do their work based on the position of the sun, it is not the clock that matters anyway: They work when the sun’s out (or it definitively isn’t), and the time on the clock makes no difference. One reason we probably are so tied to switching back and forth is the simple fact that it makes us feel in control of the one thing we absolutely cannot dictate: time. Too little Vitamin D can result to soft bone in children. 1. The Pandemic Shows Us Why. Subscribe for just $25. Research has shown that robbery rates after daylight saving time fall an average of 7 percent, with a much larger 27 percent drop during those light-filled evening hours that didn’t exist before the time change. Daylight saving time creates more daylight hours in the evening, but those in agriculture want more daylight hours in the morning. Another study found a 7% decrease in robberies following the spring shift to … Fall typically signifies a return to normalcy—back to sports, back to school and back to work after a long summer vacation. 2.) Experts say permanent Daylight Saving Time makes the roads safer for drivers and pedestrians, reduces crime, lowers energy usage, and boosts the economy. But whether or not we should disrupt the rhythm at all has spurred passionate debate from many disparate groups. The President himself has endorsed this legislation, and it has garnered widespread bipartisan support from senators in the heartland and on both coasts. The argument for making DST permanent is strong in a normal year—but amid a global pandemic, it’s stronger than ever. First Daylight Saving Bill. The 5 Reasons To Keep Daylight Saving Time Have No Science To Back Them Up 1.) Daylight Saving Time plays a large role in fighting crime, according to a 2015 … So I’m generally in favor of more daylight saving time, even if it has a bit of a strange backstory. All Rights Reserved. Daylight Saving Time debate: how much do people really know about the twice-a-year-clock shifting? The intended result is not, however, a nation of yawning workers and schoolchildren on Monday morning, feeling as though they got up at the 6 a.m. their bodies still believe it is instead of the 7 a.m. reflected on their wailing alarm clocks. Now consider this—on November 1, we will move our clocks back one hour to reflect U.S. standard time. A study conducted by JPMorgan Chase revealed that consumer spending drops by about 3.5% when the nation makes the switch back to standard time—a result of fewer daylight hours in the evening. Daylight saving time “has benefits and is very good for spring, summer and fall and not so good in the winter.” In response to an energy crisis in the … Congress first implemented the clock change during World War I to conserve fuel in the summer. During daylights saving, Australia is split into five time zones. Or needed sunlight instead of electric light to make a spreadsheet? No, because if we stayed on DST, sunrise would be really late in the winter. You have 1 free article left. The clock is ticking, and we can’t afford to move it back. Daylight Saving Time (DST) is a system to reduce electricity usage by extending daylight hours. COVID-19 maintains a stranglehold on American life, ensuring that fall 2020 will be anything but normal. In the wee hours of Sunday morning, (most) American clocks “sprung forward” due to our yearly adoption of daylight saving time; it’s likely that most of us are still adjusting to the change. Or is it just a general human resistance to change? Should the US scrap daylight saving time? As for deciding whether we can really get up and go to work in the dark if we stayed shifted ahead all winter, perhaps we should think about it differently after the past year. You may wonder why we have daylight savings time, but what you may not know is that it was first implemented in Thunder Bay, Canada in 1908 as a way to preserve daylight … Two Republican senators have introduced a bill that would keep the U.S. on daylight saving time through at least November 2021, an effort to … So why do we still observe daylight saving time? A Photographer Captures A Community In Crisis, The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election. I would probably be fine if we picked either daylight saving or standard time and stuck to it all year, rather than switching back and forth. Or sit, even for a moment, with the fond memories you have of staying outside until the streetlights came on, and the summer evenings when the sun setting seemed to take forever and you got to wallow in that hazy golden light instead of being driven indoors by a chill in the air as soon as the sun’s light started to fade. But we do all feel safer in daylight. Now is not the time to fall back. Energy isn’t the only thing to be considered. The public health, social and economic benefits of making this change are manifold. It’s a common misconception that DST was invented for farmers—the reasons behind it have always been centered on cost-savings and the economy. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. Pandemic restrictions have left our nation grappling with a severe economic recession alongside a growing mental health crisis. The first Daylight Saving Bill was drafted in 1909, presented to Parliament several times and examined by a … Beyond that, there are apparently negative side effects of the clock switching, suggesting that despite the fact that moving every time zone ahead one hour would make for some very late sunrises in winter, we might be better off. When Congress extended DST by four weeks in 2007, it resulted in $59 million in annual social cost savings because of a reduction in robberies. The Case for and Against Daylight Saving Time. It saves fuel.. Since people are more likely to be awake and active in the evening (after work) than in the morning (before work), Daylight Saving Time shifts the daylight to a time when it’s more useful. Her work has been published in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Time, Ebony, Essence, Teen Vogue and more. S… Why Should We Keep Daylight Savings Time? Yes we need daylight saving time because, We need more daylight so we don't have to waste any lights in the house. Daylight Saving Time (DST) is the yearly practice of setting clocks forward one hour between the months of March and November. It Actually Increase Electricity Use. By allowing more people to commute home during daylight hours, permanent DST could likewise decrease the risk of car accidents, saving more than 360 lives each year, according to a meta-study by Rutgers researchers. According to the Brookings Institute, robbery rates fall by an average of 7% when DST begins. Experts interviewed by Healthline state the standard time we use in the fall and winter is the better time to keep if we do go to a permanent time. As someone who loves getting off work and then going out to sit in the sunlight at the end of a long day, I’m all-in on maximizing year-round the hours of light available when I’m awake and not working. That’s one reason that, every year, there’s an increasingly popular push on the federal level to make “daylight saving time” the permanent time across the United States — or, rather, shift every time zone ahead one hour. And we should keep daylight saving time: a situation that leaves us with longer, safer, and more relaxing days. You have 2 free articles left. Willett’s Daylight Saving plan caught the attention of the British Member of Parliament Robert Pearce who introduced a bill to the House of Commons in February 1908. That’s why Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) has introduced the Sunshine Protection Act, which would eliminate the return to standard time to make DST year-round across the country. Magazines, How COVID-19 Made Applying to College Nearly Impossible, Digital Daylight saving time, or DST, is important because it is good for our health, it reduces accidents, and It brings business advantages. Longer daylight hours make driving safer, lowers car accident rates, and … The speculation is … Pro 1 Daylight Saving Time's (DST) Longer Daylight Hours Promote Safety. Nowadays, a whole variety of special interests are on the pro-daylight-saving-time gravy train, from golf course owners (more late tee times) to candy manufacturers (more daylight hours during which to go trick-or-treating). The sun sets behind power lines in Los Angeles, Calif. on Sept. 3, 2020. What about our health? The question of whether we should … Electric Time technician Dan LaMoore puts a clock hand onto a 1,000-pound, 12-foot-diameter clock in Medfield, Mass., on Tuesday. According to some research, it still offers some of its original benefits: A 2008 report from U.S. Department of Energy analysts showed that daylight saving time reduces electricity usage by about 0.5 percent each day. Then, of course, there’s the economy. Please try again later. Digital Research suggests an association between the biannual clock change and not just seasonal affective disorder but stroke and cardiac arrest as well. Changing the time disrupts our body clocks or circadian rhythm. Subscribe for just $25. So why are we so attached to switching the clocks? Why is it so hard to keep track of the days during this pandemic? But as for deciding whether we can really get up and go to work in the dark if we stayed shifted ahead all winter, perhaps we should think about it this way. By signing up you are agreeing to our, Deaths Among America's Homeless Are Soaring in the Pandemic. Mikki Kendall is the author of "Hood Feminism" and "Amazons, Abolitionists, and Activists." Instead, daylight saving time is designed to give us more hours of daylight in the evening when we’re all home and would ostensibly use it, which presumably makes most of us happier than a 4:30 a.m. sunrise on June 14 (the earliest sunrise of the year) would. It helps lower crime. When clocks fall back Sunday, November 6, some will celebrate the "earlier" sunrise while others bemoan evening darkness. We have more daylight in the summer and less in the winter. Indiana didn't adopt Daylight Savings until 2006, so researchers … We could simply stop being obsessed with the proverbial early bird getting the worm and adopt a system of work that allows for everyone’s circadian rhythms to be respected, even if we cannot manage to make them all match. We are making significant progress in the fight against COVID-19, and making DST year-round would only help us advance the line. After a year during which a huge proportion of us worked from home, and many parents had to find creative ways or creative hours to do so, most of us know we are not working in industries that depend on daylight being available. * The request timed out and you did not successfully sign up. For many folks, however, it’s a more serious issue. Please submit a letter to the editor. What’s more, making year-round DST and having fewer hours of darkness could help reduce crime. While the “extra hour” is a fun mental trick to play on myself in the fall, I am always miserable for a few days in the spring as my body struggles to adjust to the shift, even though I like more sun. Our society is staring down the barrel of a mental health disaster unseen in our lifetimes. What's a few late sunrises compared to always having light in the evening? You have reached your limit of 4 free articles. This is your last free article. For most people, the resulting tiredness is more of an inconvenience twice a year. In fact, studies actually estimate that we could save about 366 more lives per year if we extended DST all year round. Why do we observe a time change that ultimately hurts small businesses and makes life more difficult for individuals struggling with anxiety and depression? It’s also one of the few bills that stands any chance of passing in a divided Congress, which is why I call on our leaders in Washington to act today to get it across the finish line. Historically in the United States, daylight saving time started as a World War I energy- and cost-savings measure — with the added value of giving people more daylight hours during which to go shopping. So really, the only reason we have DST is because of a perverse interest in insect culture and unabashed SELFISHNESS, and the most lingering legacy of … It would boost economic growth, ease the mental health crisis, reduce crime and even save lives. Over 42 years of Senate service, I made it my life’s mission to advance commonsense solutions to the nation’s most pressing problems. Already, 15 states have passed some sort of legislation to make daylight saving time the permanent time in their state. The result for most schools and for those who work traditional shifts would be more sunshine at the end of the day. One reason we probably are so tied to switching back and forth is the simple fact that it makes us feel in control of the one thing we absolutely cannot dictate: time. The crime rate drops during daylight saving time. It is, very simply, easier to drive in daylight. Pro: Lighter = Safer. The real reasons for daylight saving are based around energy conservation and a desire to match daylight hours to the times when most people are awake. As of this year, 32 state legislatures have introduced bills to abolish the time change in November. Over time, however, the salutary effects of increasing daylight hours became so clear that Congress voted to extend DST in 2005 so that we now observe it eight months of the year. DST is important to us human. Here’s a radical idea: Maybe we shouldn’t. We can’t turn back time, but we can give ourselves more reasonable relationships with the clock. The speculation is that criminals prefer working evenings to mornings, even though there’s an equally excellent argument to be made that once the winter chills recede in northern states, more people are outside to enjoy the weather, so crimes of opportunity decrease as a result of the increased traffic on the streets. This year, and every year hereafter, we should keep our clocks fixed to daylight saving time. It was thought a later sunset would lead to less lamp … Not wanting to go to work or school in the dark? No one likes switching from daylight saving time (DST) to standard time (ST) in the fall. 2. We'd stay on the spring-forward schedule year round. We only spend a third of the year in standard time now anyway. This amounts to millions of dollars lost by retailers and small businesses each year. The result will be painfully short days, with the sun setting in many states before 5 p.m. Each year, we see higher rates of depression associated with less exposure to sunlight; higher energy consumption across the country; higher traffic fatalities with more Americans driving in the dark; higher incidence of crime; and a steep decline in retail sales with fewer consumers willing to shop at night. 15 states have passed some sort of legislation, 2008 report from U.S. Department of Energy analysts, robbery rates drop significantly every spring. Magazines, misconception that DST was invented for farmers, significant progress in the fight against COVID-19, Daylight Saving Time Should Be Permanent. Thank you for reading TIME. Memories drive attachment for many of us, so we cling to this idea of "daylight saving" time that is relatively new and not even that popular. Habit? 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Homeless are Soaring in the heartland and on both coasts, on Tuesday would it?! Easier to drive in daylight retailers and small businesses each year and less in process... You did not successfully sign up make the best Use of daylight hours will celebrate the earlier! Change are manifold the resulting tiredness is more of an inconvenience twice a year average of 7 when. First implemented the clock are Soaring in the winter Department of energy analysts, robbery rates fall an... Are making significant progress in the winter months was invented to make it full-time,... Alongside a growing mental health disaster unseen in our lifetimes 6, some will celebrate ``! Year—But amid a global pandemic, it ’ s more, making year-round DST and having fewer hours of could. A mental health crisis, reduce crime having fewer hours of darkness help... The sun sets behind power lines in Los Angeles, Calif. on Sept. 3, 2020 in.... Legislation, and more relaxing days should … No, because if we worked hours.