This year marks the 100th anniversary of what has to be one of the dumbest practices known to man – Daylight Savings Time. This seemingly pointless tradition will unfortunately leave you either an hour late or an hour early for all your obligations if you choose not to participate, so you’re pretty much forced into it. That is unless you live in Arizona, Hawaii or one of the 118 countries that don’t observe it.
DST is simply a waste of time. Or, in the case of the events this past Sunday, an unnecessary addition of time.
Even though time is a concept that humans created that binds our everyday lives, it’s not our job to play Father Time and jumble up the clocks twice a year. Why couldn’t our ancestors just set the time and we leave it at that?
My phone, watch, car clock, alarm clock and apparently my professors’ clocks all show different times. It’s hard enough to get an exact reading, and DST just makes it even harder. Sometimes I stay up at night, thinking about how nobody really knows for sure what time it is, and it freaks me out.
One of the worst parts of DST is switching the time on the clocks on my appliances at home. Thank God I’m away at college now so someone else can handle the burden. It seems the hardest thing to learn how to do with any oven or microwave is set the time on the clock. I’m sure Martha Stewart and Rachael Ray can’t figure it out either, and they’re great with ovens.
I’m particularly not a fan of DST, because it’s always messed with my sleep schedule and overall quality of life. As complex as our bodies may be, they still don’t know the difference between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. the day after DST. Nothing freaks me out more than waking up at my normal time of 8 and having it be broad daylight out. So many times this past week I’ve jumped out of bed thinking I was going to be late for class when, in reality, DST was just messing with my body’s natural clock.
I was a swimmer in high school. Just like any other winter sport athlete in school, I’d arrive to school in the dark and leave in the dark. For months it would feel like I never saw the sun. From the lack of vitamin D my body was receiving to the impact the chlorine had, my skin took an absolute beating during swim season.
Most people think DST was designed for farmers to maximize the time they could work in the field. This, however, is not true. After brief research, I found that when DST was first implemented most farmers opposed it, calling it a disruption to their day. After all, a farmer’s workday is dictated by the sun, not the clock.
Christian Gravius is a contributing writer for the Bona Venture. His email is
graviucc15@bonaventure.edu
