Daylight Savings Time

On the second Sunday of March at 2:00 AM, the clocks went forward an hour. This is daylight saving time or DST. First suggested by Benjamin Franklin in 1784, it was shot down by many. During World War I DST was made to help people make better use of the daylight. It's meant to take an hour of sunlight in the morning and add it to the evening, therefore conserving daylight hours.

Now all daylight saving seems to do is make us feel annoyed, groggy and tired. Although we should be preserving daylight hours/energy, we have many other better ways to do that rather than taking an hour of our sleep away. We aren't in a war anymore where we would need to save an much energy as possible. Parker Martinez, freshman, believes that DST is pointless, “I don't understand why we have it and I never have. It just makes the days seem longer and the nights seem shorter which can really mix up my schedule.” DST is linked to loss of productivity, although it may seem like there isn't much of a time difference, most people can't afford to lose an hour of sleep. The sudden change of time can throw off people affected by Seasonal Affective Disorder. DST in America does not occur in Hawaii and some of Arizona. They are still doing fine, as well as many other countries that don't use DST.

Daylight saving can be seen from a positive point of view. It is teaching us to fit into the world in a natural, healthier way. Americans use so much energy, most of it is very unnecessary and has a more earth friendly option. DST is eight months long, looking at one day and deciding you hate the whole scheme of it is just unreasonable. By next week most likely everybody is enjoying the extra sunlight and has forgotten or gotten used to the less hour of sleep. Without DST we wouldn't be able to fully enjoy our summer. People in America spend more time awake in the evening than we do in the morning, so making evenings longer just mak

es sense. Gage White, junior, believes that DST is doing us more favors than it is bad, “Yeah losing an hour of sleep sucks, but all you have to do is go to sleep a little earlier and you won't even notice. I like being able to do things in the evening without it being pitch black.”

Even if you despise daylight saving time and want it gone so you can keep your hour of sleep, it does help our environment in small ways. We would be fine without DST, but it can be nice knowing that you're helping out our world by conserving the little bits of the energy.