When President Woodrow Wilson signed daylight saving time into effect to conserve energy for the World War One war effort, daylight saving time was useful. But now, there is little need to fiddle with our clocks twice a year.
When time comes to roll back an hour, the added time is welcomed with outstretched arms. But springing forward is a different story. We are unnecessarily robbed of a precious hour of sleep, leaving us feeling sleep deprived and groggy. I am sure that I am not the only one who already gets too little sleep. Between work, school and after school activities, there is not much room for it. This lost hour causes me to awake in the mornings and question the logistics of actually being awake this early, and the solution seems all too clear. Remove daylight saving time.
The National Bureau of Economic Research did a study in Indiana that disproved the theory that daylight saving reduced energy cost. That removed hour also destroys sleep patterns. To get the same amount of sleep, you have to go to bed an hour earlier, but when you wake up, it still feels as though you got less-than-satisfactory sleep. Several places in the United States and around the world no longer use daylight saving time, such as Arkansas, China and Russia.
Removing daylight saving time would remove the continuous feeling of sleep-deprivation and restore balance to the night/day cycle many of us are used to living. There is not much of a place for it in today’s world, and removing it would make for a much more enjoyable early spring.