Daylight Saving Time

I know it's been a couple of weeks ago now that we changed our clocks back an hour, but it just really hit me last night, as I was getting ready for church at only 5 pm, how dark it was. It's actually quite depressing, if you ask me. I heard somewhere that we used to always be on this schedule, called "Standard Time," but since everyone back in the day was pretty much a farmer, they needed an extra hour in the day in the summer time to harvest their crops, so they switched it back to let this happen. But since not so many of us farm anymore, I was wondering why we still have to switch our clocks back now. Just as it's starting to naturally get darker earlier anyway, we help it along and "fall back" to where it's even stranger. And as I'm not a night person anyway, as you've already discovered, this just makes me tired earlier, significantly less fun when I am tired, and worried that I have that Seasonal Affective Disorder (where people are depressed in the winter because they are exposed to less sunlight). Anyway, being the nerd I am, I decided to do some research on the real reasons behind all this madness. I actually found out some very interesting things. I'll share them with you now. First of all, to correct a common misconception: it is actually called "Daylight Saving Time," not "Daylight Savings Time," as I have mistakenly called it for years. Some countries don't utilize Daylight Saving Time at all. (Remind me never to move to those places... or the three U.S. states that never "spring ahead": Arizona, Hawaii, and Indiana) A pole was done by the U.S. Department of Transportation though that discovered that Americans liked DST. So why don't we just stay on it all year around? "Tradition?" you may ask, but actually, it hasn't always been done like this, and even since it has (Benjamin Franklin came up with the idea), it hasn't always even been done the same way year after year. Some years, it was just agreed upon to only change the clocks 30 minutes or even a few years bump them around 2 hours. This confuses me and this whole time thing really is so arbitrary (we humans just made it up to make people like me go crazy) that it really hurts my head. Another argument for keeping us on DST is that energy is saved. For all you environment lovers out there, power usage decreases by about 3.5% when DST starts. Other studies have shown that since there is "more light" in DST, and more crimes occur during "dark hours," DST even cuts down on crime! It makes sense to me. Well, since I guess the organized world concurs by this system, I'll just fall in line. However, it has been an enlightening topic. I hope this has helped all of you and if you want to read more, I got my information from www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving and www.timeanddate.com.