Lost Sleep Over Daylight Savings Time

Oh, it's a Sunday morning.

Yawn!

No alarm to wake you up in the small hours to get you rushing to work.

Stretch, and turn around for another round of sleep.

And when you finally climb out of bed, you realize that it's not even that late. This is the one Sunday of the year, when you get back that one hour you lost in the Spring, due to the switch to Daylight Savings Time. What a perfect opportunity to enjoy an additional hour of a cold and rainy October morning!

Was It Really Worth It?

As you gaze into the gloomy, though not completely dark sky, you try to appreciate that finally you won't have to wait THAT long for the sunrise any more... At least for a couple of weeks, until it really won't matter any more, as the Winter darkness envelopes both mornings and evenings, depending on your latitude. So seeing the sun set in the ranges of the mid-afternoon is a relatively small bother. Much worse is the mini-jetlag imposed on us, making it particularly hard on those with regular sleep schedules.

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So twice each year this practice is questioned by many folks, quite understandably so. And each time their concerns are rationalized away with the usual explanation: Supposedly it saves energy, due to the illumination of street lights and such. Quite frankly, this never made any sense to me, since the same illumination is needed BOTH in the morning AND the evening. When it is dark, you need to turn on the lights, so it really doesn't matter what the clock says.

A Symbol for Something Much More Serious

While most people agree that the effectiveness of Daylight Savings Time is highly disputed, and at best questionable, it is accepted as one of those facts of life that just are, and can't be changed. That, in and of itself is rather scary, since we're talking about simply adjusting our clocks, not reorganizing our economic or legal frameworks, which are also in need of an overhaul. So how did we adopt such a thing in the first place, not only in one nation, but internationally?

Just in case you were wondering, no one ever voted on it. (Kinda like the smoking ban in pubs, lockdowns in the pandemic, or your favorite issue mandated to you bypassing your democratically voted snicker legislature.) You may have even guessed, this practice of twisting around on the clock twice a year was initiated during a time of crisis. It was when the most powerful nations faced off in what became known as the First World War. Interestingly, in spite of their differences, most opposing parties agreed on this one issue. Hmmm... Since then we all keep participating in it.

We All? Really???

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Each time I look at this map, it seems like there are fewer and fewer places in the world where this nonsense is still practiced (blue on the map), mostly Europe and North America. The countries indicated in red never had it to begin with, since around the equator the differences of day length during Summer vs Winter are negligible anyway.

It is the orange colored countries, states, and provinces, which are most interesting to me: There they used to follow the time switch at some point, but managed to abandon it. Most notably for me is my home country of Mexico, where the currently serving president refused to switch to daylight savings time this year, in a populist attempt to raise a middle finger to the United States.

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The effects of this move may be just as disputed and questionable as the practice of daylight savings itself. Clearly, it created some logistical challenges in trade with places that did switch their time, but none that couldn't be resolved. After all, the same kinds of challenges have existed within the US (and Canada), such as Arizona and Saskatchewan, among others, who instead of switching times, they switch time zones, as a result of their neighbors switching.

The strangest thing for me was how Google seemed unable to adjust the time zone of Mexico City from UTC-6 to UTC-7 over the Summer this year. So in order to get the correct time of day indicated on my phone, I had to go with Belize City instead. What's your deal Google? Was this technical issue really that hard for you? Or are you a proponent of the time switch? Or is it that you simply don't care?

So What Does This Teach Us?

It is seemingly easier to get an allegedly anti-establishment president elected with a 2/3 majority, so he can use his political clout to implement sweeping changes to major systems... than it is to get the support of tech giants!

However, change is apparently still possible, and so I remain hopeful for the world. Maybe one day we can overcome the restrictions we have placed on ourselves in form of fear and disbelief, and we can finally stop twisting around on our clocks. Then we may be able to focus on the more important things that need to be taken care of, to make this world a truly great place to live in.

How do you feel about the practice of switching to Daylight Savings Time, and what do think about abandoning it, even if only in your country / region / town? I'd be curious to know!