Springing forward
As most of us know, daylight savings is a process or even a tradition, where we turn back clocks by one hour in the fall and forward by one hour in the spring. A.K.A spring forward, fall back, or springing forward, falling back — heard this for the first time today but will absolutely be using it in the future. It is something that Canadians, in particular, have been practicing for over a hundred years, though it is also practiced in many other countries.
However, clearly, people are starting to get over it, as certain countries are eliminating this practice entirely. For example, the US Senate unanimously passed a bill recently to eradicate the practice — the bill now only awaits House and Presidential approval. British Columbia passed legislation back in 2019 to eliminate the practice but has yet to set an official date. I believe that more Canadian provinces will follow soon.
Daylight savings is something that I think about for a fraction of a second twice a year and then forget about entirely. Before writing this article, I didn’t really see a point in changing the clocks by only one hour twice a year. However, I may be persuaded to change my mind.
Hear me out — at first, I thought daylight savings time was pointless. As I actually started to research the logic behind it, it’s starting to make sense. The idea is that daylight savings time saves energy since the daylight can provide more light. While this might have been true at one point, it has since been debunked. Humans are going to use as much energy as we want, realistically — who cares about the environment, right?
There is, however, a good reason to keep daylight savings. It can provide the poles with more daylight. Residents of the poles only get a few hours of daylight at certain points of the year — if my seasonal depression is bad in Ottawa, I can’t even imagine the bottles of Prozac and Zoloft they go through up north.
On one hand, daylight savings might be an inconvenience for people who still have manual setting clocks or those who notice when they get one hour less of sleep. By the way, I am not either of these people since I have an iPhone and am always tired no matter how much sleep I get. On the other hand, it could be beneficial for people living in the poles or affected by seasonal changes in hours of daylight.
In conclusion, I’m good either way. Daylight savings time doesn’t really affect me that much and I probably wouldn’t even notice if anything changes. Although, the mere fact that our government has put so much thought into this is so funny to me and maybe even a little upsetting since we have much bigger issues. But hey, that’s just me, right?
Sincerely,
A political science major who over-analyzes everything.
