When Sunday night rolls around this week, everyone in America will be bracing themselves for an hour of less sleep, dark mornings, and bright evenings. While the positives and negatives surrounding Daylight Saving Time are certainly abundant, there is one element of this year’s time change that there is no debating about: technology will help us all to get to work on time this Monday morning.
It seems as though in today’s everyday life technology supersedes practically everything. From conversations to work to something as simple as watching a television show, the average American has trouble putting down that smart phone, tablet, or laptop. In fact, it almost feels silly to use the term “smart phone”. How many people do you know without one?
Since the introduction of these groundbreaking technologies (that the average consumer takes for granted), life has gotten easy, like very easy. Do you have trouble remembering when to change your clock? Is it an hour ahead or an hour back? Technology alleviates the need to even think about these questions. Come Sunday night at 2:00 a.m., a large majority of the people who are reading this article will be deep in a REM cycle as their phones, tablets, and laptops seamlessly transition to reflect Daylight Saving Time.
The ability for these technologies to automatically (and accurately) change the time has already become another aspect of the digital world that people take for granted. Remember the days of sleeping too late and missing work? How about being the last guy to your Sunday morning softball game? These things used to be common occurrences. Today, your boss and your coach know that your phone is displaying the right time.
For those of you who are a bit slow on the uptake, there’s an app for that! SpringAhead, a new app by IDEA.org, helps people to make sure that their clocks are switched properly for Daylight Saving Time and Summer Time.
What other common practices will technology alleviate? Only time will tell. In the meantime, let’s hope all of our smart phones, tablets, and laptops are ready for the switch this Sunday.
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