A state senator is sure it's the latter, so he's pushing a bill to abolish daylight saving time in Florida.
Saying it puts people through ''unnecessary jet lag'' and the annoyance of having to change clocks in the spring and fall, Republican Sen. Bill Posey of Rockledge wants the Sunshine State to join Hawaii and parts of Arizona as DST rebels.
''The whole body gets out of its equilibrium,'' Posey said Thursday at a Senate committee on governmental operations, where he is vice chairman.
The group favored the bill 4-1. It faces two more committee votes before the full Senate would take it up; there is no similar legislation in the House.
Sen. Jim King, the lone no vote, believes the extra hour of daylight is worth the aggravation of changing clocks twice a year. The draw of the Sunshine State is, of course, sunshine.
''The other side is the elongated lighted time in the summer months, which is when we entertain most of our visitors,'' said King, a Jacksonville Republican. ``It's a plus that it doesn't get dark until late.''
The practice of turning clocks back in the fall and ahead in the spring has been controversial since Americans began observing daylight savings in 1918. At the time, U.S. politicians borrowed the idea from their European allies to help conserve energy during World War I. The unpopular decision was repealed, even after President Woodrow Wilson -- a golf fanatic -- fought hard to keep DST.
Congress brought back DST during World War II and made it a law in 1966. States can opt out of observing DST, which begins the second Sunday in March and continues until the first Sunday in November.
Posey's idea is for Florida to ''stay off it all the time,'' he said. He talked about the hassle of changing clocks, watches and cellphones, about work accidents going up during DST and the effect it has on people's internal clocks.
Some early studies supported the theory that daylight saving time conserves energy, but some recent examinations found that it can increase energy consumption -- partly because people have to run air conditioners longer into the evening and use heaters and lights when it's still cold and dark in the morning.
One study, released in February by researchers at the University of California-Santa Barbara reported that household electricity usage increased by 1 to 4 percent after Indiana adopted daylight saving time in 2006 -- an additional cost of $8.6 million.
''Our main finding is that -- contrary to the policy's intent -- DST increases residential electricity demand,'' the researchers concluded.
Miami Herald staff writer Martin Merzer contributed to this report.
