Hello all and welcome back to The Hitching Post!! Today I will be covering daylight saving, what it is, why we do it, how it affects us, and some people’s opinion. But before I get into what daylight saving is, Mesa Nation…what’s your opinion?
As most of us know, daylight saving occurs in March of every year, setting the clocks ahead one hour. Thus, making our days feel longer. Daylight saving is now almost like a tradition we have of turning our clocks ahead an hour once a year.
How did we even think to do this every spring, you may be wondering? Benjamin Franklin is your answer. Franklin first suggested it in an essay he wrote back in 1784. After rediscovering his essay, a man named William Willet had made a campaign to set the clocks ahead by 80 minutes each April, whilst reversing it in September. However, the British House of Commons rejected the bill. Soon after, the U.S., Australia, Great Britain and Germany adopted daylight saving due to World War 1 to conserve fuel by reducing the need for artificial light.
After the war this tradition in the U.S. formally began on the last Sunday in April of 1986, after congress made it a law. However, Hawaii and Arizona don’t follow this. Arizona doesn’t have daylight saving due to their hot climate, and the time change would make it even hotter. Hawaii doesn’t follow through with daylight saving due to how close they are to the equator. Due to this, the sun would set around the same time each night, no matter the time set back.
Along with an extra hour of daylight comes affects on the people around you. According to Stanford Medicine studies, studies have shown that people would be healthier without daylight saving. The study says, “The collective loss of an hour of sleep on the second Sunday in March has been linked to more heart attacks and fatal traffic accidents in the ensuing days.“They’ve worked with cardiac professionals to get down to the bottom of this, and after some research, it’s proven that if we stayed at standard time year round, there would be a total of 300,000 fewer strokes and 2.6 million fewer people with obesity. Another study from The University of Alabama at Birmingham also has done several studies that show the time change leaves a risk of heart attacks, especially for those who already have heart disease.
Although this is a yearly thing, many people have various opinions on whether or not we should continue starting our clocks ahead one hour every spring. Let’s ask some fellow Mustangs and hear their opinion!
Emma Freeland, a part of the freshman class, answered my question, “Do you like daylight saving and why?” by saying “I like daylight saving because I like having longer days. I feel like I have more time on my hands, and it feels like summer is approaching us sooner.”
Another freshman, Nora Sage has said that, “I like daylight saving because we have longer days and that’s when it starts to get warmer in the evening, leaving us with pretty sunsets to enjoy.”
And finally, let’s hear what senior Ashlyn Denker has to think. “I really like daylight saving and feel like as a teenager in high school it motivates me to get through the end of the year. The sunny days and warmer weather is what I feel like makes us all look forward to summer, which helps us push through our last exams and finals.”
So Mesa Nation, after hearing the facts, effects, and what your peers have to say, what do you think? Should we keep daylight saving? Or should we have left it with Benjamin Franklin?
