This year, daylight savings was on Sunday, March 10th. It is time for our clocks to be an hour ahead as we can spring forward to the new chapter
The diversion of time can leave individuals feeling groggy with a potential feeling of lack of incentive within the first week. From a psychological perspective, Mr. Cirilli adds his input on why people are affected by daylight savings time.
“Circadian rhythm is what we are talking about here which is the way we respond to light and dark and makes us feel tired or awake. Whenever you change the hours, changing the time of the lightness or darkness during the day affects our feelings of being awake or sleepy,” said Mr. Cirilli, AP psychology teacher.
Students and staff may feel less motivated due to this change in light time on top of the hour’s loss. Despite this, academically, students still prevail through the tough alterations and maintain their grade averages. The biggest struggle that Mr. Cirilli noticed was the lack of engagement from the students, especially on the first day of encountering the difference.
“On the days that it happens, it can actually be harmful. There are some studies that have shown that the morning after with the time change, especially whenever we lose an hour. But beyond that, once people adjust it’s not necessarily harmful anymore,” said Mr. Cirilli.
As a senior at Wheeling Park High School, Mia Metz adds her personal opinion on how daylight savings positively affects her.
“It is a good opportunity to reset your sleep schedule, plan activities for later times due to longer daylight time, and for seasonal sadness to be over with,” said Metz.
Although there are positives to daylight savings, there is a majority of those who would rather entirely do away with it. The purpose of daylight savings is no longer relevant as we have progressed as a society and have developed better technology to adjust to the darkness coming with winter. Mrs. Hemplemann, the green club sponsor, explains that.
“It was designed to conserve electricity and energy. As the daylight hours shift when we move towards the spring equinox, the clocks changed to match up with those daylight hours. However in modern times, we use more energy-efficient devices and our schedules aren’t always able to line up like they used to,” said Mrs. Hempelmann.
Depending on the perspective, the opinion of daylight savings varies but it appears to have a mass agreement of the excitement of having a longer, brighter day.
