UNITED STATES—Well, if you don’t know by now, let me remind you, this Sunday is Daylight Savings Time. What does that mean? Well it happens twice a year. In November, we set our clocks back 1 hour gaining an extra hour of sleep. In April, we spring forward 1 hour losing an hour of sleep. I always like November a bit more, but at the same time, I hate April because I lose an hour of sleep.
Sleep is the one essential thing so many Americans don’t get enough of and this week so many Americans might get the opportunity to get a few more zzzz’s something we all need. However, it comes at a major cost and when I say major cost I mean a major, major cost. I need someone to explain to me why during the greatest time of the year (The FALL) and so many epic holidays like Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas, it is dark outside by 5:30 p.m. That is indeed crazy and it baffles me to the core.
I don’t like it and I never have. Why? It creates safety concerns in my opinion. The sun doesn’t come up till almost 8 and that is not good for children going to school and people going to work who have to walk to the bus stop. I hate to say this I really do, but with more darkness it seems to open the door for more criminals to strike and to plan to strike and I absolutely hate that. To me darkness at almost 5 p.m. is a terrible idea and I don’t know who came up with this jumping forward and jumping back because it creates problems in your sleep schedule, we lose light when people are out and about more and it’s pretty dark during the morning hours when people are getting ready for the day.
I don’t want us to be like that region in Alaska where they go 6 months of darkness and 6 months of daylight, but we need some level of balance. Why can’t we have 12 hours of sunlight and 12 hours of darkness? I don’t know how things function with science, the Earth and the Sun to where we can have a balance of things, but it would be nice if we actually did America.
The falling back hurts people who work also. If you are scheduled to work you have that fear of oversleeping or constantly checking your phone or watch to ensure the device properly flops back that hour so you’re not late. For those who work nights, you run into that situation of having to work an EXTRA HOUR because of the clocks falling back. Do you get paid more for it? Sure, but in the long run is that extra hour of work worth it people.
I think that extra sunlight we get in April is great because more brightness in the summer months is terrific, but why can’t we have that around the holidays. I mean hello it was 6:30 p.m. on Halloween and it was dark as could be. You could barely see trick-or-treaters. In a few weeks, everyone will be out and about hosting Thanksgiving dinner and then you have to throw in the chaos of Christmas where people will ABSOLUTELY be out late in the day and night, working, shopping and loading gifts in and out the house with very little light.
That is gold to criminals and it seems as a society, we don’t see or even acknowledge such issues, why can’t we change that America? This is NOT me lobbying to get rid of Daylight Savings Time, but I feel we need some sort of medium to where it benefits all when it comes to sleep and daylight. I mean I don’t hear people complaining about getting an extra hour of sleep, I do hear people complaining about losing daylight because you have a distinct window at your fingertips to do certain things.
Written By Zoe Mitchell
