We’re now just days away from the event that will expose the divisions at the heart of American society. That’s right: Daylight saving time is ending.
The semiannual changing of the clocks, which takes place early Sunday morning, Nov. 3, elicits strong feelings in people, pro and con. Californians, on balance, are against it: In 2018, we voted to join Arizona and Hawaii in opting out of the whole mishegas.
Here at The Standard, the rift over daylight saving time runs right down the middle of the newsroom. On one side is managing editor Jeff Bercovici, who loves DST. On the other sits culture editor Emily Dreyfuss, who hates it. Here, the two colleagues offer their best arguments for and against the practice. Take them in, and then tell us what you think in our poll below.
JEFF: Emily, you and I have our differences, but there’s one thing we share: We’re both trapped on a ball of rock whose rotations mark the drumbeat of our swift march toward death. But once a year, the calendar offers the sweetest gift life can provide: an extra hour of precious time. For some reason you don’t want that?
EMILY: Jeff, it’s fake! That’s not a real extra hour. It’s a trick that big government(™) is playing on you! They took one hour that used to be called 2 a.m. and called it 1 a.m.! And in exchange, we have to accept the sun setting an hour earlier while we attempt to ride, drive or walk home at night.
No offense, but you’d have to be a real psycho to enjoy darkness falling earlier. Or perhaps just someone who’s immune to depressive episodes. Or maybe you’re Scandinavian. I just know that I dread this time change every year and consider it a personal affront to my way of life.
JEFF: I’m not a psycho, but I am a morning person. (Same thing?) Waking up when it’s still midnight-dark outside is rough. But I’m also a realist. Here in the Bay Area, at midwinter, we’ll have fewer than 10 hours of daylight no matter what the clock says. When that happens, we’ll both be waking up and getting off work in darkness. Just gotta embrace your inner Scandinavian and go full hygge mode.
Won’t you at least love that feeling of looking at your clock on Saturday night and realizing that it’s actually an hour earlier than you thought and you can get an extra hour of sleep? Everyone loves sleep!
EMILY: As a parent to young kids, I’m not getting an extra hour of sleep, even this Sunday. I’m getting my 5-year-old in my bed an hour earlier asking me to make breakfast.
My mornings are devoted to scrambling eggs and finding clean underwear for every member of my household and filling backpacks with permission slips and snacks. It’s the evening, when the responsibilities of work and school have abated, that I can finally pause to hear birdsong. But the birds go to bed when the sun sets, so when the sun sets earlier, I do not get to hear them at all. Maybe this whole debate comes down to being a morning versus night person?
JEFF: A true night person would welcome the earlier arrival of darkness. You’re … an evening person? Is that a thing? Anyway, I’m not arguing for daylight saving time as an institution. I’m not a 19th-century farmer or whatever. But as long as we’re saddled with it, I say this Falling Backward is good. To hell with you, Spring Forward.
EMILY: Actually, did you know the whole thing about farmers benefiting from daylight saving time is a myth? In fact, farmers lobbied against it when it was first introduced back in 1918. It had more to do with getting people to shop more during times of war, according to the History Channel, which I trust for all things.
JEFF: So the farmers aren’t holding us hostage anymore — should we just get rid of daylight saving? As much as I like turning the clocks back an hour, I might hate turning them forward even more. Can we agree on that one, at least?
EMILY: I think we can. Let’s keep time steady. Life is already chaotic enough.