What Does Daylight Saving Time Mean? Confusion

Every year, you kind of look this up, later forgetting the details and/or realizing you didn’t totally understand them in the first place. It’s time to go through the exercise again. What does daylight saving time mean? I’ll shed a little light (maybe).

 

Terminology and Definition

Daylight saving time goes by a bunch of different names, some of which are a bit perplexing. Daylight savings time (note the extra s). Daylight saving. Daylight savings. Daylight time. Summer time.

The reality is that daylight saving time (DST) doesn’t save daylight, nor does it save time. As you know, the basic concept involves turning the clock ahead by one hour (usually in the late winter or early spring) such that a human being on a relatively normal schedule experiences more daylight later in the day. In other words, what used to be 6 am becomes 7 am (making for darker mornings), and what used to be 6 pm becomes 7 pm (making for lighter evenings).

Whenever this manipulation is performed, it is met with a 23-hour day, balanced by a 25-hour day in the fall when the reverse manipulation is performed to return to standard time.

 

History

How did such a concept even come to exist? The idea of aligning human activity with daylight hours is nothing new, probably dating back a really long time. In more modern times, as electricity allowed for an increase in non-daylight activity, deciding exactly how to align daylight with daily life became a topic of debate.

The first city to experiment with DST was Port Arthur, Ontario, Canada, located on Lake Superior. The small city, no longer in existence as it was later amalgamated with nearby towns to form the city of Thunder Bay, made the leap in 1908. It wasn’t until 1916, however, that DST hit the big time. That year, Germany and Austria-Hungary adopted the measure to limit the need for artificial lighting and thus preserve coal during World War I. Other European countries and the US would eventually follow suit.

After World War I, the US decided to make DST a local option. Aside from a few years of conformity during World War II, the result was a potpourri of opt-ins and opt-outs with limited standardization regarding when time changes were made. The chaos ultimately prompted the Uniform Time Act of 1966, federal legislation that established time changes on the last Sunday in October and the last Sunday in April. (Opt-outs were still allowed at the state level.) Over the years, the dates have shifted to November and March, meaning that standard time has been relegated to about one-third of the year.

And what exactly is the point of this peculiar practice? The idea of limiting energy consumption is still promulgated, though as the number of ways we consume energy has increased, this claim has become debatable. Less debatable is the fact that many simply enjoy the increased daylight after work and school. Some also credit the measure with decreased crime and traffic accidents. And perhaps the greatest proponents of the oddity are the Chamber of Commerce—citing a boost to shopping thanks to post-work daylight—and outdoor recreation enthusiasts (think golf).

As would be expected, not everyone is on board, including those whose livelihoods depend on entertainment venues that thrive at night. Those in the agricultural industry might not appreciate the dark mornings, and anyone monitoring prime-time television ratings might notice a dip.

 

Some Quirks

The decision to play with the clocks isn’t completely mainstream, as countries choosing not to partake in the practice outnumber those that do. And among the countries that participate, uniformity is far from guaranteed. These quirks make for some interesting phenomena.

While most US states change the clocks, Hawaii, Arizona, and many US territories abstain. (The Navajo territory within Arizona does in fact honor DST.)

Much of Europe plays along—at least for now—but the continent typically changes the clocks on weekends that do not exactly coincide with the US time changes.

Africa and Asia generally stay out of the whole situation (with exceptions, of course).

Parts of the Southern Hemisphere have embraced the idea, though DST obviously starts in October-November and ends in March-April to line up with the summer months.

 

Picking a Time

Many have called for an end to this temporal madness, urging the use of just one time all year round. In addition to highlighting the nuisance factor, such advocates point to evidence that suggests the 23-hour day—a successful formula for sleep deprivation—is associated with a transient spike in traffic accidents and heart attacks.

The entities in the US that already have a time-change-free existence are following permanent standard time. While several states have flirted with the concept of permanent DST, the aforementioned Uniform Time Act disallows the move, meaning that an act of Congress—possibly in the works—would be required for approval.

In the meantime, frustrated states can perhaps take solace in the fact that prior experiments with permanent DST have not been well received. As an example, when Richard Nixon enacted the measure in 1974 (in response to the preceding year’s oil crisis), the prolongation of dark winter mornings was unpopular enough to result in its repeal.

 

It’s possible that despite my best intentions, you’re actually even more confused than usual. If so, just follow your cell phone—it’ll have the right time.