Are time changes illogical?
Despite its many inconveniences to the modern student, the biannual time change continues to shine as an indispensable tradition.
So, we recently had the biannual time change, an honoured practice revered for its chaos and confusion as we switch our clocks. Such a practice has occurred for years and is intended to allow us to effectively utilize sunlight, hence the name “daylight savings time”. It’s a great “time” because we get as much sunlight as possible throughout the day.
As such, logic dictates that every year we switch daylight savings for standard by moving one hour ahead only to switch again in March. After all, an extra hour on an isolated day is such an invaluable amount of time. This practice started in Canada in 1908, and obviously remains relevant to our needs today. While the change may cause other inconveniences, forcing us to change our plans and lives accordingly, it’s totally worth it for the benefit of sunlight.
The first inconvenience is one we students know well: sleep. As a result of the clocks moving back or forward an hour, we end up losing one hour of sleep. Of course, this is a very precious thing to us students because of all the time we spend in classes, work, and other commitments. Aside from being so pleasant, sleep is a factually important to our biology. There is growing awareness of the importance of sleep to our physical health, hence why some studies mentioned that accidents rise in occurrence after time changes.
November, of all months, is such a perfect time for this drastic change, adding to the already joyous midterm period. We’ve always wanted to ensure the best results on our midterms and a disrupted sleep schedule seems like just the thing to help!
Sunlight directly benefits our mental wellbeing. It makes sense that bright light makes us feel brighter, and I don’t need to tell you that we students have all sorts of things to stress about.
As such, in late fall and early winter, when our stress is at an all-time high with midterms and grad applications, it’s very logical to ensure there is much less sunlight during the day at this time! Maybe you don’t think so but, trust me, this is all worth it for the greater good. That is, the benefits of having one more hour of sunlight when we switch back to daylight savings time.
Another victim of this honourable time change is our schedules, which must be reworked. After my afternoon classes, I’d use the sun’s position to structure my prayer time, and with the time change that was no longer an option.
Oh, and in the age of more online interactions, chances are that you may find yourself teaching, working with, or being with someone in another part of the world with a different time zone. Maybe this person’s home doesn’t do a time change and, boom, your calculation of the time difference must be redone.
Stuff like this happens biannually, but it’s a price worth paying, as the benefit of switching to more sunlight and then back to less is truly undeniable. After all, that extra hour gives us endless opportunities for what to do. And, yes, on the first day it totally is cool for it to be 4:00 at 5:00 and know how much leeway we have with that extra hour. Sure, it only lasts for one day, and by the next day it’s just 4:00 at 4:00. And sure, it leads to all these other inconveniences, but obviously having an extra hour that one day is worth the price of gold. I’m totally not going to waste that extra hour, right?
It’s so obvious that changing to daylight savings time makes sense because, it’s true, sunlight is a very good thing. I mean, don’t you love it when your day ends at 5:00 PM and it’s pitch black by the time you get home? Maybe you do, but if you don’t, it’s cool: your chances of running into a skunk or a thug are much higher when it’s harder to see, and that’s why curfews and advisories to not stay out too late exist. But this is just another minor inconvenience that is worth it for the very logical time change.
Despite how logical and universal the time change practice is, more places seem to be doing away with this noble tradition. Some places enact their time changes on different dates, and other places, like Saskatchewan, don’t even do one! That being said, Quebec, New York, and Ontario, all of whom share the same time zone, have hung on to this extremely logical practice. And who can blame them? After all, it’s obvious that, despite the inconveniences, the time change is a longstanding tradition due to its roots in basic logic.
Staff Writer (Volume 49 & 50) — Yusuf is in his fourth year completing a double major in English and Cinema Studies and a minor in History of Religions. He first joined The Medium in 2022 when he sought to get involved in the on-campus community. He has developed strong writing skills throughout the experience and enjoys learning about new topics he wouldn’t know about otherwise. You can connect with Yusuf on LinkedIn.