Less than a week ago we experienced an event that many of us think is unnecessary. In fact, it throws some of us for a loop. It is called daylight saving  time and it throws me off kilter for a few days. Initially, I gathered all my devices around the house and “spring forward” the hour hand. Spring forward and fall back is the memory device we use to remind us what to do twice a year when we have to adjust our clocks. So, I grabbed the loop and adjusted my kilter to bring you tidbits about DST.

The goal of DST, or daylight saving time, is to make better use of daylight during the longer days of spring and summer. It allows people to enjoy more sunlight during their waking hours. There are pros and cons and different theories of effectiveness. The goal of DST is to save energy and spend less on keeping electricity going. However, in our modern society we have so many devices that rely on electricity the benefits of DST are minimal. 

 Proponents of DST point to several potential benefits that go beyond energy conservation. Those who support the concept of DST point out that the longer evening hours give us more time to spend doing outdoor activities.

There have been some oddities associated with daylight saving time. The United Kingdom in 1927 experimented with something called double British summertime known as DBST . They advanced the clocks by two hours instead of the usual one. This meant that some days as much as two extra hours of daylight creating a surreal experience with the population and was met with mixed feelings. Psychologists have studied another event called the Monday after DST phenomenon. They have studies that show that Monday following the spring shift to DST. There is a noticeable increase in accidents and workplace injuries attributed to the abrupt change in sleep patterns that disrupts the body’s circadian rhythm leading to increased stress and fatigue. So many people experience mental health problems during DST that they have a name for it…seasonal affective disorder or SAD.

Daylight saving time has also thrown a monkey wrench into NASA’s Mars Rover missions. The Rovers had to be recalculated to something called Martian time which has a slightly longer day than on earth. Making that adjustment also caused the teams from NASA to work on the mission to change their work schedule to coordinate their hours with the Martian Rovers.

In 2015, North Korea decided to get into the action of playing around with clocks and nuclear warheads. They adjusted their clocks back 30 minutes creating its own time zone called “Pyongyang time.” However, in 2018, the country reverted back to South Korean time effectively abolishing its own version of daylight saving time. Surprisingly, this decision was seen as a gesture of goodwill during the inter-Korean peace talks but it didn’t affect North Korea’s sporadic launching of missiles over Japan. 

Locally there was fear that having Daylight Saving Time this year would complicate the government’s attempt to stem the rising tide of avian  flu. It’s true that chickens like humans are influenced by the amount of daylight they receive. The change in our clocks does not directly affect the natural daylight cycles that chickens follow. Although it did provide another answer to the age-old question why did the chicken cross the road? The answer could be to get to the other side for more daylight.

In the United States daylight saving time used to end on the last Sunday in October just before Halloween. This meant that trick or treaters and Halloween parades had one less hour of daylight to collect candy. When representatives of the companies that make candy realize that more daylight for even an hour at night lead to higher sales of their products, the group called the candy coalition successfully moved the end of daylight saving time to the first Sunday in November. This was a windfall for Big Chocolate because DST conveniently fell after Halloween.

Hudson Cooper is a resident of Sullivan County, a writer, comedian and actor.