Night owls want daylight saving time to be permanent

Sunday, March 20, 2022

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COMMENTARY

In the battle for societal norms, my fellow afternoon/evening people scored a victory this past week when the U.S. Senate unanimously advanced the Sunshine Protection Act, which would make daylight saving time permanent.

I should point out up front, because I’ve seen plenty of confusion about it, that “daylight saving time” is what we observe when we move our clocks ahead one hour in March of every year, while “standard time” is what we’re on when we turn them back in November. This act, if it passes through the U.S. House of Representatives and is signed into law by the president, would keep us as we are now, with more daylight in the evening hours year round. Who wouldn’t want that, right?

Well, if you’ve been keeping up with any of the discussion surrounding the topic this past week, you likely have seen plenty of arguments against it, mostly having to do with sleep and people’s alertness in the morning. As an evening person or night owl myself, I find those arguments to be quite humorous, as we deal with that problem daily.

There are a lot of studies being thrown around to make a case one way or another, but what this really boils down to is: Do you like having more daylight in the morning, or more daylight in the evening? We already observe daylight saving time for about eight months out of the year, so most of the conversation is about the winter months. For those who value exercise and other outdoor activities, I would expect this permanent time change would go over well. As a bonus — and perhaps the most obvious benefit — we would no longer have to adjust our clocks twice a year, which I think we can all agree is a good thing.