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http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2013/12/tech/cnn10-ideas/
There's a way to end seasonal clock confusion and eliminate jet lag.
All it would take is doing away with daylight saving and splitting the continental United States in two time zones: East and West, an hour apart.
It's not a radical idea. In fact, changing how we view time is a natural part of progress in society. In the Civil War era, every city in the country had its own local time based on the position of the sun. That was too confusing for train schedules, so the country moved to four time zones in 1883.
But we've evolved since then to an even more connected world. Now we all watch the same television channels and trade on the same stock market. Our lives are more integrated, and a more unified time system makes sense.
Allison Schrager, an economist and writer in New York, made the case for a change in an essay she published before we turned the clocks back in November. Here's how Schrager's plan would work: Eastern Time jumps onto Central Time, and Pacific Time becomes Mountain Time. That would give east coast states brighter mornings and west coast states sunnier evenings.
Schrager told CNN she first thought about it when she commuted to Austin, Texas on a regular basis. She noticed everyone in the Southwest did everything at the same time as New Yorkers, they just called it a different time.
"The whole point of keeping time is coordination. The problem is, there's just so much confusion," she said.
That's only made more complex by daylight saving time, a practice that the United States adopted from Europe in 1918 to save energy. Clocks are set forward in summer to extend afternoon daylight.
However, the vast majority of the world doesn't do it, which makes it hard to coordinate the new, temporarily adjusted times between Asia, Europe and the United States. Plus, there's little proof daylight saving actually reduces energy usage.
Eliminating the practice would prevent the jarring feeling we all get in the fall when the clocks reset and it suddenly gets dark at 4:30 p.m.
The downside? It'll take some getting used to.
But it's less confusing than resetting your watch after a five-hour flight that, on paper, took eight hours one way and three hours the other.
There's a way to end seasonal clock confusion and eliminate jet lag.
All it would take is doing away with daylight saving and splitting the continental United States in two time zones: East and West, an hour apart.
It's not a radical idea. In fact, changing how we view time is a natural part of progress in society. In the Civil War era, every city in the country had its own local time based on the position of the sun. That was too confusing for train schedules, so the country moved to four time zones in 1883.
But we've evolved since then to an even more connected world. Now we all watch the same television channels and trade on the same stock market. Our lives are more integrated, and a more unified time system makes sense.
Allison Schrager, an economist and writer in New York, made the case for a change in an essay she published before we turned the clocks back in November. Here's how Schrager's plan would work: Eastern Time jumps onto Central Time, and Pacific Time becomes Mountain Time. That would give east coast states brighter mornings and west coast states sunnier evenings.
Schrager told CNN she first thought about it when she commuted to Austin, Texas on a regular basis. She noticed everyone in the Southwest did everything at the same time as New Yorkers, they just called it a different time.
"The whole point of keeping time is coordination. The problem is, there's just so much confusion," she said.
That's only made more complex by daylight saving time, a practice that the United States adopted from Europe in 1918 to save energy. Clocks are set forward in summer to extend afternoon daylight.
However, the vast majority of the world doesn't do it, which makes it hard to coordinate the new, temporarily adjusted times between Asia, Europe and the United States. Plus, there's little proof daylight saving actually reduces energy usage.
Eliminating the practice would prevent the jarring feeling we all get in the fall when the clocks reset and it suddenly gets dark at 4:30 p.m.
The downside? It'll take some getting used to.
But it's less confusing than resetting your watch after a five-hour flight that, on paper, took eight hours one way and three hours the other.
