Daylight saving time is a yearly occurrence that we all just have to take in stride. Depending on your schedule, the time change can really affect your daily life. Many people don’t know exactly why the time changes and that it’s unnecessary. Daylight saving was first developed as a way to get more sunlight in the spring and summer months when it was prime field-working time. In many agricultural communities, the extra hours of sunlight in their day was crucial before the widespread use of electricity. After the use of electricity became more widespread and more small towns started to industrialize, people started questioning the importance of daylight saving time. However for most communities, daylight saving time stayed a regular part of their calendar.
Not even all 50 states in the United States observe daylight saving. Arizona and Hawaii keep the same time year round and they seem to operate just fine, so why don’t we change to one singular time here in California? Many are actually discussing this and actively trying to get California to not observe daylight saving time. Different groups of people feel the negative effects of daylight saving time differently. For the most part, everyone is mostly affected through their sleep. Whether the clocks are springing forward or falling back, people always have something to say about their sleep. The majority of complaints about daylight saving time come during the spring when the clocks go forward an hour. Due to this, the population loses one hour of sleep that first night. While in theory the time change shouldn’t affect someone for more than 24 hours, but many claim that the change disrupts their sleep cycles and they can end up feeling groggy or just plain tired for up to a week.
Even here at College of the Sequoias our own students are affected by daylight saving time and for some people, the effects may be more noticeable than others. COS Student, Citlali Gomez, expressed how the time change affects her daily life, not only negatively, but positively as well. Gomez said how she actually happens to enjoy the extra daylight during the day and that she gets to use the extra time to get things done.
Gomez relayed, “I can have more time to do my homework too,” when asked about the benefits of daylight saving time. While life gets so hectic with school, work, and even family, those few extra hours in the evening can be noticeable for some. Because of the extra hour of sun, Gomez’ life happens to feel that much more manageable and she’s able to actually enjoy it rather than worrying about it getting dark and wasting precious daylight.
However, she also did state that she feels affected by the initial lack of sleep for the first day or two. While having the extra time in the evening to spend with family and getting things done is super beneficial, the time change itself can be a hassle. Especially when dealing with kids, Gomez points out the task of getting her kids ready for the day after their night with one less hour of sleep. Even though she may be tired, she still has to take care of her kids, who are tired themselves. Getting them ready in the morning and off to school for the first couple days proves to be challenging.
While the time change does affect everyone, some students at COS may have different things on their plate and therefore feel the effects that much more. While she is a fan of daylight saving time in terms of the hours of daylight, Gomez does wish that we would stick with the daylight saving time year round, like Arizona or Hawaii do with standard time, rather than changing during the year. If California votes to get rid of daylight saving time, then the changes would be felt that same year. Our fall and winter would have longer days, we wouldn’t have such gloomy evenings at work. Getting rid of daylight saving time would definitely affect the people dramatically, as it would essentially change how we experience the months from November to March. People would see late night football games and Christmas parties in a new outlook. This way the people in California and our students at COS would benefit from the extra hour of daylight year round, without having to deal with the awkward time jumps.
