Is the Idea of Daylight Saving Time Justified - Research Paper Example

What is more important to a human being that the light with which that person has to perform the tasks he or she needs to survive? Daylight saving time exists as a means to increase the light from a summer day by advancing clocks one hour ahead at a coordinated time each year. As a result, to the observer, the sun seems to rise one hour later in the morning, when people are typically asleep, and sets one hour later in the evening, which gives the appearance of a longer day. Of course, because of very different geographical differences between societies around the world, daylight saving time is carried out in a variety of ways. For instance, in the Southern Hemisphere, the winter months are summer months in the Northern Hemisphere, which means that the two regions change their clocks at the opposite time. The idea of daylight savings time is contentious, especially because it is such a universal political phenomenon, and is motivated by a multitude of different political concerns such as energy, economics, public safety, and public health. Those that clam daylight saving time is necessary think of it as essential for leisure industries, lower energy consumption, and public safety on streets. Those who think of it as a nuisance see it as possibly damaging to workplace safety, software infrastructure, and public health. Although the benefits of having a daylight savings time in place for the world is important in many respects, it is not imperative that the world have such a policy, and therefore each country ought to uniformly do away with such time change laws. Prior to the 1900s, specifically sophisticated rail and communication networks, the idea of a daylight saving time was not useful. However, with the advent of standardized time, the idea gained steamed after being first proposed in its modern form by George Vernon Hudson after he noticed how important daylight was to the study of insects. It was put into practice without an extensive study into the benefits of such a practice. The first modern system of daylight savings was used by warring Germany and the Allies in World War I to conserve coal. The warring parties would save energy by moving the clock one hour forward in the summer, increasing the length of darkness in the morning while increasing the length of light in the evening. This allowed the countries to conserve on commodities such as coal that were literally fueling the war effort. As a result, the socially ingrained practice of conserving summer daylight remained a public exercise that would continue throughout Europe and in America, and throughout the world as business interests spread abroad. Daylight saving time is generally seen as necessary. The initial justification for the practice was weak, and, like so many other social institutions, it began in wartime but has since outlived its peacetime utility. However, defenders of daylight saving time support the policy by looking at society-wide effects, particularly those they claim on the topics of leisure industries, energy consumption, and public safety. The issues they examine in these topics are intuitive (that is, they make sense), but they lack a great deal of empirical support. For instance, it makes perfect sense to say that an increase in natural light (due to the extension of the evening hours when everyone is awake, at the expense of the morning hours, when everyone is asleep) lowers the demand for energy during these peak hours. This principle seemed to be on display in World War I as some initial justification for putting into practice. However, the widespread marketing of home air conditioning units in the 1920s left no net effect on this theory. The increase in the consumption of energy to cool the home during the light evening mitigated the decrease in the consumption of energy to light the home. A government-backed report on the efficacy of daylight savings time found no net effect on energy usage (Gurevitz). Advocates of daylight saving time also extol the benefits to public safety, particularly the intuition that traffic fatalities will decrease because of increased light on the roads. Although there is some literature to support this thought in industrialized countries with extensive road infrastructure, metastudies of this literature particularly in the United States is inconclusive, citing a zero net effect on traffic fatalities (Gurevitz). In addition, in terms of public safety, it is widely believed increased daylight reduces crime, which is more likely in nighttime hours. But contrary to this line of thinking, the United States government decided that the findings of research into the topic are inconclusive (Gurevitz). These public effects are concluded by appeals to benefits to public health when it is claimed increased sunlight provides more opportunity for exercise. However, these positive effects are mitigated by increased chances of skin cancer, seasonal affective disorder, and depression, as well as disruptions to sleep disruptions because of changes to the body’s circadian rhythm (Valdez, Ramírez and García). The economic effects are also praised and attributed to daylight saving time. Advocates claim businesses that sell sports equipment benefit from increased recreational activity, and benefit the leisure sector of all economies overall, due to increased leisure activity through the extra afternoon hour. One study has attributes a 3% increase in the revenue of the European leisure sector solely to daylight saving time. Nevertheless, these positives are once again mitigated by negative effects on primetime and theatre entertainment, as well as on farmers who set hours based on sunlight. In addition, there is the substantial cost to enterprises and software developers who must take extra steps to conform to daylight savings rules. Changing hours according to the standards reduces economic efficiency. Estimates place the one-day cost of a shift in the clock on the NYSE in excess of $31 billion (Kamstra, Kramer and Levi), in addition to an estimate of $500 million to $1 billion in private software and application enterprise (Arnoldy). This places daylight saving time as among the worst interferences with a smooth and efficient marketplace in the United States. Beyond the positive effects, there is a multitude of different negative effects to consider whether a daylight saving time policy is at once necessary and at second practical. In the computer age, in which large and complex systems are tightly interconnected, interferences to the smooth communication of data prove to be costly for organizations. Although computer systems are becoming more equipped to handle these seasonal changes, software developers must always test and retest programs to compensate for changes. Individuals must keep track of changes and times across multiple timezones, and adjust mechanical clocks that cannot change automatically. This added element of complexity, applied to the large scale, is an unnecessary layer of inefficiency. Moreover, in many ways, daylight saving time actually reduces public health and public safety, not just in ways that cancel out the positive benefits of that policy. For instance, clock shifts disrupt sleep patterns that ultimately contribute to higher risk exposure in organizations for accidents and other workplace hazards. James D. Adams observes, “the sacrifice of morning daylight per hour of evening daylight gained is larger and adoption less likely… the greater is the sensitivity of accident risk to changes in daytime work hours”, and that “greater sensitivity of accident risk causes expected losses to increase for the same sacrifice of daylit hours” (Adams 345-6). Adams goes on to call daylight saving an “endogenous” law, which refers to a law that is without an external cause, which is a valid point. Without external justification, daylight saving time still exists because of intuitive, or perceived, benefits to the public, without valid support for any of these highly touted advantages. Daylight saving time has been likened to the Puritan attitude of labor as a moral good (Davies), which seems consistent with the practice’s origins in wartime, when the value of labor is expressed as a function of the society’s move toward (or away from) success in collective objectives. The benefits of a universal daylight saving time are best summarized as intuitive, meaning very simply that they make intuitive sense. However, beyond the common affection humankind shares for natural sunlight, there cannot be any conclusive statement of benefits for the use of moving clocks forward one hour in the summertime. It does not save energy on lighting, since roughly that same amount of energy saved goes into powering home air conditioning units lowering temperatures in the home. Studies have not shown conclusive evidence that additional times with sunlight lower crime rates or traffic fatalities, even though such a conclusion would make sense given the necessity of light conditions in driving and the fact that crime is more likely during dark hours than light ones. Although daylight savings time is commonly said to be essential for the leisure sector in the developed world, the advantage is slight, and does not compare to the money lost by all kinds of enterprises, as they require more advanced software applications to deal with time-sensitive operations. The sheer amount of money lost by businesses on worldwide stock exchanges is staggering and must be taken into account as daylight saving policies are considered intermittently around the world. The best possible course of action for a government is to mitigate the disadvantages of having daylight saving time while keeping some of the benefits, such as those for the leisure industry, physical activity outside, and suicide rates in the summer. Nevertheless, the current system cannot be supported by any real line of evidence. Economic inefficiency, energy consumption, and sleep disruptions (their relationship to workplace safety) must be addressed. It is unclear why daylight saving time still exists so far removed from its first widespread usage in war-torn Europe of the late 1910’s; therefore, these “endogenous” laws ought to be at least reconsidered for their efficacy. Most people hate having to change their clocks and readjust their life cycles to conform to these standards, and it is about time policies changed. Works Cited Adams, James D. "Daylight Savings: An Endogenous Law." Public Choice 36 (2) (1981): 345-349. Arnoldy, Ben. "Latest computer glitch: daylight saving time." Christian Science Monitor (2007): http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0307/p02s01-stct.html. Davies, Robertson. "XIX, Sunday." The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin, 1947. Gurevitz, Mark. Daylight saving time. Order Code RS22284. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, 2007. Kamstra, Mark J., Lisa A. Kramer and Maurice D. Levi. "Losing sleep at the market: the daylight saving anomaly." American Economic Review 90 (4) (2000): 1005-1011. Valdez, Pablo, Candelaria Ramírez and Aída García. "Adjustment of the sleep–wake cycle to small (1–2h) changes in schedule." Biological Rhythm Research 34 (2) (2003): 145-155. Read More