Daylight saving with Modern Technology

Moving the clocks ahead one hour at 2 a.m. Sunday is not the issue it once was. Cell phones, computers and many other devices that link to external signals will change automatically, making daylight-saving time less of an event than it used to be.

Andy Tiner of Centerton said he will not be changing any of his clocks before Sunday morning.

"Most of them do it by themselves," he said. "Except for the microwave and the stove, and I'll catch them sometime next week. "

On typical Sunday mornings, people who must be somewhere at a certain time are either on their way to work or heading to a morning church service.

Rogers Fire Chief Alan Bradrick is among those who stand the most to lose if people oversleep by an hour. The department's shifts change at 7 a.m. each day, and he can't go an hour without firefighters or paramedics. But he's not worried.

"Usually, there's one or two that show up early or late when we do this," he said of the times the clocks change.

Bradrick said he generally sees more people show up an hour early in the fall when the clocks are set back than he sees arrive late in the spring. If one of the employees is late, someone will make a call. Bradrick said it is no different than if they overslept on any other day.

It is more important, he said, to make sure the department's many electronic devices are set to the correct time and to double check to ensure that the computers adjusted automatically, but that is usually done by someone who is still awake when daylight-saving time starts or ends.

Area churches, meanwhile, have been working for weeks to make sure their parishioners know of the time change.

Cathy Safreed, an administrative assistant at the First United Methodist Church of Bentonville, said the announcement has been in the church bulletins and newsletters, so the stragglers will be few.

"Whatever there is, it will be minimal," she said.

Anna Egle, pastor's assistant at First Baptist Church of Bentonville, said the church's two Sunday school sessions will help, as people can attend the later session if they wake up late.

But people seem to now understand the time-changing practice that began in 1919, even though it was changed last year.

The Uniform Time Act of 1966 set the April to October schedule for daylight-saving time, but a 2005 act of Congress changed that schedule, starting daylight-saving time in March and ending it in November.

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