We’re just a few hours away from the Fall Back, the point in the fall when our clocks are turned back to Standard Time.

Every year it’s a big adjustment for many people. We’re suddenly plunged into late afternoon darkness. The days seem much shorter even though the length only changes slightly from day to day.

The winter switch to Standard Time always seems worse than the Spring Ahead change back to Daylight. It’s at least more difficult for me personally. The spring change is something I welcome, but some people say that it also tends to be inconvenient at first.

It might add up to more than inconvenience. There’s research which indicates that sudden time changes aren’t good for people. It’s a yearly jet lag that experts link to everything from heart attacks to traffic accidents.

Polls show that a large majority of people want to quit switching back and forth. There’s disagreement about what time system should become permanent. Some say it should be Standard Time while others favor Daylight Savings. Even the different state legislatures have two different approaches.

I personally think Daylight Savings is the clear choice. Standard time is an archaic, anti-social way of regulating daylight.

It’s true that Standard is the pure way to measure time if you delve into astronomy and physics. Otherwise it’s no longer practical. It doesn’t work as well from a social and cultural standpoint.

The question sometimes gets asked as to why Daylight Savings Time was started to begin with. It was actually launched for practical reasons.

Benjamin Franklin reasoned in the 18th century that by setting the clocks ahead one hour it would be possible to save on lighting expenses in the evening. In his time period, the cost difference for light-related energy resources was significant.

Daylight Savings continued into modern times because people liked having the extra hour of light on summer evenings.

It provides more time on the lake, more time in the back yard, or more light for sports events and concerts. The only trade off is one hour less of light early in the morning, which is not much of an issue. No one in their right mind gets up that early.

Circumstances change in the winter with shorter days. The single biggest reason not to favor year round Daylight Savings is that it wouldn’t get light until about 9 a.m. on winter mornings.

It would lead to a choice between going to work or school in the dark or simply delaying the start of everyone’s day. Some people insist that a late start would never work. The question of why it couldn’t needs to be asked.

If we want to consider historical norms, it was customary in pre-industrial society not to work as much in the winter as in the summer. The holiday season was literally in some ways a holiday period.

The industrial clock changed all that, based on the idea that a factory shift had to start at a given time and had to run at least eight hours.

In the 21st century Information Age, it might be time to mothball the industrial clock. Many jobs no longer have to revolve around a factory-type schedule. In a place like Minnesota, we’re likely to have at least a half dozen late starts anyway because of winter weather.

Why not just slow down?

Why not create a work schedule that better reflects the length of the days and the true spirit of Christmas?

If we have to make a choice, year-round Daylight Savings Time is by far the better option. The choice involves choosing light or choosing darkness. It’s better to choose light.

More likely than not, we might just have to settle for having a combination. The Fall Back is the price we pay for having the best of both worlds, a summer with long nights and a winter that’s in keeping with the traditional daily work and school routine. It’s a delicate balance, one that up to now has been a modern-day fact of life.

— Jim Muchlinski is a longtime reporter and contributor to the Marshall Independent