Daylight Savings Time

As the time approaches that Europe ~ where I live ~ will follow (most of) the U.S. in Daylight Savings Time, it occurs to me that the name, of not the concept, is a misnomer.

When Daylight Savings Time was invented, the thought behind it was that shifting the clock one hour throughout the Summer would bring major economic benefits. We, the people would not use as much electricity because as the sun would set later in the evenings, we would not need to turn on the lights quite so early. And this is true as well for outdoor sporting clubs, and not to forget street lanterns.

After so many years of adapting to the shift in time, new research has shown that the economic savings connected to Daylight Savings Time are nominal at best.

However it does have its effects!

As the rush hour also starts an hour earlier, it is found that birds have started to sing their songs earlier and in some cases louder, in order to be heard over the traffic noise.
And on a different note, some may suggest that the pollution brought on by rush hour ~ something that happens every day, no matter what convention we use for ‘time’ ~ has more profound ramifications when it happens in the earlier morning hours when Daylight Savings Time is in effect.

The good thing of course ~ especially when you live a bit further to the North ~ is that the evenings really tend to go on for ever before the sun sets, and dusk finally turns into dark.

But what exactly are we saving by collectively agreeing to get up an hour early each morning?

The name does suggest that we are saving time.
But how do we save time?

One could argue that we save time by doing the task at hand in a more efficient manner, so that it takes us less time to get it done. For instance, by combining the errands we need to run, we will do them all in one morning instead of running out for each errand separately; which can take way more time…
So by ‘upping’ our efficiency, we safe time which we can then spend on other things ~ be it having (more) ‘me-time’, or rather being able to get more done in a day.

Yet by only shifting the clock forward in Spring (and backward come Fall) there is no sense at all of making ‘better’ use of our time ~ of ‘saving time’. We still take the same time to perform the tasks at hand, do our chores; it is just that we do them a bit earlier in the day…
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