Hate clock changes? This expert disagrees

In 2024, 71 countries will use Daylight Saving Time (DST), and it seems that a sizeable portion of the population wants to eliminate it in each one. In the United States, several states want to “ditch the switch” and stay on either permanent DST or permanent standard time.

Timeanddate.com has talked to Dr. David Prerau, an internationally recognized expert on DST, ahead of the upcoming clock changes on November 3. In his opinion, the DST debate puts too much focus on the negative sides of seasonal clock changes.

Daylight saving time begins on the second Sunday of March at 2 a.m. and ends on the first Sunday in November at 2 a.m. (The Weather Network)

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The Benefits No One Talks About

“When people think about DST, they often think about the negative effect of losing an hour of sleep one day of the year when we set the clocks for summertime. What they don’t think about is that by doing that, we gain 238 days in the spring, summer, and fall with all the benefits of lighter evenings and 118 days in the winter without the very late sunrises,” he says.

Dr. Prerau thinks the current system is overall an excellent compromise:

“It is the best of both possibilities since it provides the many benefits of DST for most of the year and yet avoids the negatives that winter DST would bring during the year’s darkest months.”

He argues that DST also has many other benefits:

“It reduces traffic accidents and crime, reduces energy usage, increases public health because it gets people out in the evening, and improves the quality of life for people who don’t like going out in the dark.”

Same as Travelling between Time Zones

Despite all this, there’s no shortage of voices in the US expressing discontent and a determination to cancel the practice.

If you’re one of many people who only see the turning of the clocks as a hassle, Dr. Prerau reminds us that traveling between time zones is really no different from switching the clocks for DST:

“Losing one hour of sleep when changing the clocks is no different than going one time zone to the east, from Chicago to New York, from London to Paris, or from Beijing to Tokyo–and people do that constantly. The difference is perhaps that people plan more when they’re traveling. Travellers know they are going to a different time zone, so they often make some preparations for it; they get a little more sleep or avoid making a lot of plans at night or early the next morning,” he says.

“If people made the same preparations before changing the clocks as when traveling between time zones, many of the negatives would be minimized. I propose a national campaign to prepare people ahead of the DST switches to make adjusting easier.”

Read the full story, here.

Content provided by Time and Date, via Reuters Connect

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