Today is the second day of Daylight Saving Time. Odd name for it, actually… not sure how we’re ‘saving’ daylight. However it was named, there is one particular thing about it that I do not like. And, it’s not what you think. EVERY year, people (including news reporters and others who should know better) describe DST as ‘gaining an hour’ of sunlight. Wow. How’d they manage THAT. I mean, if they can pluck more sunlight out of the time-space continuum, then surely we can send a man to the moon =).

SO, get out your calculators folks, it’s time for some math. According to the Astronomical Applications Department at the U.S. Naval Observatory, on March 10, 2007 (the last day of ST) the sun rose at 6:55 AM EST and set at 18:41 PM EST (that’s 6:41 PM for you non-military types). That day, we had 11 hours and 46 minutes of daylight. On March 11, 2007 (the FIRST day of DST) the sun rose at 7:54 AM and set at 19:42 (7:42) PM. On that day we had 11 hours and 48 minutes of daylight… so where’s my hour?

In fact, the only time we ‘gain’ daylight is – well – EVERY day from December (the winter solstice and the shortest day of the year) to June (the summer solstice and the longest day of the year). We lose daylight EVERY day from June to December. So why do people continue to say “We gained an hour of daylight!”? My guess is that either they don’t really mean it, or that it’s just been said so much over time that people don’t really think about what they’re saying. It’s simply become true via repetition.

I encounter this phenomenon a lot in my job. Something that starts out true gets twisted and/or becomes not true anymore. The most prominent example is ‘customers don’t want more than three clicks to get to their information’. Whether this has ever been true, I don’t know. But I do remember uttering those words myself because I heard or read it somewhere.

I’m sure it surfaced because that’s what the user’s SAID… not what they actually did. In fact, Jared Spool, a renowned user experience researcher with User Interface Engineering, found that users will click as much as they have to as long as each click produces relevant content. In fact, sometimes users were more successful completing tasks the more they clicked. He calls this the ‘Myth of Three Clicks’. In short, it’s about what you get and how you get it rather than how ‘long’ it took you to get there.

By the way, here are some other ‘myths’ about DST:

• Ben Franklin, often credited for starting DST, did not propose the hour change. He merely suggested that the French wake up earlier so as to enjoy more of the daylight.
• DST was first implemented during WWI (1916) in Germany, with the U.K. following suit soon after and the U.S., picking it up in 1918.
• Farmers in the U.S. did NOT like DST and it was not enacted for the agricultural industry. It was a wartime effort.
• William Willet, a builder and outdoorsmen proposed DST in 1905 because he felt it was a shame that more Londoners didn’t get up early to enjoy that part of the day and because he didn’t like having to cut short his golf game at dusk.
• Woodrow Wilson, an avid golfer, vetoed the repeal of DST in 1919.

So, essentially, we have DST because of golf. Where are my clubs? It’s supposed to be nice today…