Hate Daylight Saving Time? You May Have a Point, Researchers Say
Image: 2017-03-11T213829Z_2_LYNXMPED2A0HH_RTROPTP_3_USA.jpg
Scott Gow adjusts a tower clock on test at the Electric Time Company in Medfield, Massachusetts March 6, 2009. Daylight saving time began in the United States at 2 a.m. Sunday. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Author: Joseph Ax, Reuters
NEW YORK – For most Americans, daylight saving time means only one thing: losing an hour’s sleep. So what is the point?
This is actually a reasonable question, according to a growing body of scientific research.
Daylight saving time is the practice of moving clocks forward by one hour during summer months so that daylight lasts longer into evening. Most of North America and Europe follows the custom, while the majority of countries elsewhere do not.
When clocks in almost all of the United States sprang forward by an hour at 2 a.m. Sunday, it will likely prompt an increase in heart attacks and strokes, cause more car accidents and reduce worker productivity, according to studies. It will also fail to cut the nation’s energy bill, contrary to what the experts once believed.
In December, a psychology journal published results showing that federal judges handed out sentences that were on average 5 percent longer the day after daylight saving time began than those given out one week before or after.
More: Hate daylight saving time? You may have a point, researchers say - Alaska Dispatch News
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