What’s the real deal with this time change?

Here’s the one indisputable fact about daylight saving time: Some people like it and some people don’t.

Other than that, just about everything else regarding this spring ritual is in dispute. For example, does it really conserve energy?

One of the primary reasons for adopting DST in the first place was to cut down on energy waste. In theory, people would use the extra hour of light in the evening to frolic outside, watch birds, tend the garden, sit on their porches or engage in other activities that require no electricity or natural gas. And, because of abundant sunshine, they wouldn’t even have to turn on their lights until darkness descended just before bedtime.

This might have worked in the 19th century when people read books or talked to each other to pass the time. These days, when people get home from work, they are more likely to sit in their air-conditioned homes, streaming video, fiddling with their laptops or otherwise consuming energy like crazy.

So, do we use more or less energy during DST months? Studies indicate that it’s basically a wash; some energy usage (electric lights) goes down while others (computers and other electronic devices) go up, and the energy savings are slight to nonexistent.

Well, is DST good for our health? That extra hour of sunlight might eventually prompt us to be more active and do healthy things rather than sulking in the dark.

But the first week of DST is a bear. Everyone who feels a little off-balance and cranky this week, raise your hand.

As we fall back and lose an hour of sleep, our normal circadian rhythms are disrupted. Of course, many of us are willing conspirators in disrupting our own sleep patterns.

This entails the following self-deception: “Hey, I know the clock says it’s 11 p.m., but it’s really only 10 p.m., so I can stay up an hour later!” We forget (or purposely ignore) the fact that it works the same way in the morning when the alarm goes off at 7 a.m. but it’s “really” only 6 a.m.

Disrupted sleep patterns are more than just a minor annoyance. Studies show that the lost sleep results in more traffic and workplace accidents.

It often causes headaches, severe ones for some people And, at the least, many of us become slugs at work.

Then again, the effect is mostly temporary. Once our bodies adjust to the new schedule, the problems fade and we are no more slothful at work than usual.

But surely DST must have some benefit. Someone must have a financial stake in gaining an hour of sunlight at night.

Well, instead of “stake,” think “steak.” It seems that the grill and charcoal industries lobbied hard to extend the number of weeks DST is in place.

The reason is obvious: with more light in the evening, people will cook out more. Grill and charcoal lobbyists, we salute you.

But not all industries are pleased. For transportation industries – airlines, trains, buses – the time change wreaks havoc with their scheduling.

And any early-bird industry, such as farming, must hate DST. It means they have to start work in the dark.

Talking about early risers, they probably represent the largest contingent of whiners about DST. They complain about how unpleasant it is to rise at 6 a.m. to take their morning constitutional or eat their wheat toast or whatever they do at that hour, and to have to do it in the dark.

Well, there’s a moral to this. Stay in bed, where it’s nice and cozy – and dark! That’s where people belong at 6 a.m.

Catch the rest of us at 8 p.m., happily standing around the grill with a cold beverage in hand, watching the ribeyes sizzle.

Changing time is an arbitrary illusion. It doesn’t change the way the earth rotates, it just changes the way we measure the passing hours.

It’s like cutting off a 6-inch swath from the bottom of a blanket and sewing it onto the top to make the blanket longer.

But it’s a mutually agreed upon illusion. In essence, we took a vote, and daylight saving time won. In fact, let’s take another vote and make DST year ’round.

Even if we don’t go that far, we need to change the names. With DST in place eight months out of the year, it now represents standard time – the gold standard.

Call the other time daylight losing time.

This story was originally published March 13, 2015 at 11:27 AM with the headline "What’s the real deal with this time change?."