Is Daylight Becoming Extinct?
Can someone explain daylight saving time to me? I just don’t get it. Why do we need to save daylight? Are we running out of daylight? Doesn’t daylight magically reappear every morning? I’m fairly certain the sun is suppose to light our planet for at least another five billion years.
I also don’t understand how daylight saving time gives us an extra hour of daylight. Am I missing something here? Isn’t there approximately the same amount of daylight — it just starts and ends an hour later, right?
Then there’s the theory that daylight saving time saves energy. Sure, with daylight saving time, we don’t need to turn on the light as often at the end of the day. But I read somewhere that daylight saving time actually increases energy use because people use the air conditioner an extra hour longer when it gets hot. According to another study, people also use more gas because they are out and about.
As you can probably tell, I’m not too fond of daylight saving time. I find manually adjusting the clocks annoying. And with the new schedule in the states, I have to adjust the clock twice on my old electronics because they were programmed with a different daylight saving time schedule. For me, the hardest part of daylight saving time involves the kids. Last year, it took my son about a month to adjust to the new time. Tucking him in at night was a two-hour ordeal. I love my son, but I have better things to do than to lay with him for two hours every night waiting for him to fall asleep.
This year, I decided to do something different. For the past week, I’ve been tucking my son ten minutes earlier each day. It’s sorta working. For the last three days, he has been falling asleep around 8:15 (7:15) regardless of what time I tuck him in. On Sunday, it took me 75 minutes to tuck him. Better than two hours, but longer than normal. So, here’s the new poll question. How do you adjust for daylight saving time?
How do you adjust for daylight saving time?
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No DST here! Everyone else we know and love has to contend with this, though, so sometimes that fact that we don’t is a pain because we still have to account for that.
You’re still lucky!
Hey, I’m back!!! Except for last year, I’ve been on shift for the last few DST changes. It sucks, even though it makes the shift an hour shorter. It’s just another reminder that the shift will be an hour longer in the fall. Eventually Colorado is supposed to stay on DST and not switch back in the fall. Isn’t that stupid??? Why not just stay on regular time??? Grrrrrr…
Sunrunner- Colorado is going to confuse EVERYONE. That is ridiculous!! I think there needs to be a national mandate that we just stay on regular time!
Sunrunner, maybe you’ll get lucky in the fall and get the day off.
http://webexhibits.org/ daylightsaving/c.html
That will explain some of it’s usefulness and uselessness… I don’t understand why the USA holds onto this tradition (some states don’t)- the days NATURALLY get longer in the spring/summer and with the invention of air conditioning, etc, I don’t think we’re saving by keeping our lights off. I love the extra daylight hours in the evening, but it doesn’t seem worth it to mess my own internal clock up! Plus I hate getting to work IN THE DARK at 0700.
No advice on kids- you just gave me one more thing to worry about -ha!
Thanks for the link. I’ll take a look, but I don’t think I will ever like daylight savings time.
It was hard for my eight year old to adjust last night. He slept in late Sunday morning, so getting him to go to bed last night, was a headache…It took him over two hours to fall asleep, then he was tired, crying and irritable this morning. Indiana, used to never change their time…until last year, then we had to start. I have mixed feelings about it.
I wouldn’t mind the time change as much if I didn’t have kids or if the kids were much older.
I totally hate daylights savings. hate hate hate. It’s the crazy stupidist thing. It might have made sense when ben franklin came up with it ages ago, but it doesn’t make sense now. And when they decided to change the day to do daylight savings that just irritated me more.
I totally hate it.
Glad to know its not just me.
Oh wow, I live in colorado and hadn’t heard what sunrunner mentioned above…But then again I completely and totaly spaced daylight saving as did my husband and we ended up at church when the service was ending…oooops, thankfully we weren’t volunteering that day.
I never adjust, I grumble for about 6 months about my lost..no, stolen, hour.
I did that once, except I showed up to church an hour early.
I actually like the extra hour of daylight now and hate the lost hour in the fall. My family doesn’t do well with extra dark. But at any rate, it takes me about three weeks for my internal clock to catch up. I walk around in a fog. AND the fact that my clock was made before the new three weeks earlier rule and doesn’t self adjust. But it does in three weeks so I have to set it back. GRRRR!
That’s the old electronics part I was talking about. Makes me wonder if businesses supported the new schedule to make consumers upgrade their old electronics.
The other confusing thing is calling people overseas. We SHOULD be an hour behind my in-laws, but now we’re the same time as them. Might not sound like a big deal but then you ask yourself “Is 8:00 too late to call? What time is it?”
You’re lucky you don’t have relatives like mine. They call at all hours and they live in the same city.
We live really close to a state boarder and to be honest it drives me nuts.
Only advantage is that the shops open one hour earlier …lol..
Then you must not like it when the clock moves back in the fall and the shops open an hour later again.
I’m not a big fan of daylight savings time, especially in the Spring. Losing an hour is much worse than gaining an hour!
I hear ya. I don’t mind it so much in the fall because it’s not that hard to tuck the kids in later at night.
I’m just supremely grateful to live in one the few states that don’t do daylight wastings time. :)
Hugs,
Holly
We observe DST as well since my company is based in Dallas. I don’t get this practice either.