6 things you didn’t know about daylight saving time
I’ve got a secret: I don’t really get daylight saving time. In fact, until now I thought it was daylight savings time, plural. Springing forward, falling back, changing clocks… it’s all so much work! And while it’s great that everyone can sleep in a bit, the change of hour totally messes with your sleep schedule. So to demystify the whole thing, it’s good to know all there is to know about daylight saving time. If only so you can school your friends tomorrow when they show up late for brunch and try to blame it on the clock.
It’s not so bad these days, since way back when, nothing was automatic, so you could actually run the risk of waking up, looking at the clock on the wall, and being totally wrong about what time it was. It felt like the Twilight Zone. Luckily, now that we’re all glued to our phones and computers, the devices basically do all the hard work for us. But it’s still crazy that we can just time, right? (Or is that just me?)
To fully understand the enigma that is falling back, here are some quick facts to help you prep for the time change.
Daylight saving time was created to save energy…
According to Live Science, “The idea for changing the clocks is traced to Benjamin Franklin, who reckoned that people could conserve energy and revel in an extra hour of daylight if they moved their clocks forward in the spring.” While that’s an incredibly smart idea, I’m still a little peeved that the late great Ben Franklin had to make our lives more complicated twice a year.
…But the jury is still out as to its effectiveness.
Apparently, a 2007 study by the Department of Energy concluded that it is unclear whether or not daylight saving time actually helps us save energy. Multiple studies also concede the inconclusiveness of Benjamin Franklin’s theory in present day.
2 a.m. was deemed the most reasonable time to have people change their clocks.
After all, changing the time at midnight would technically be changing the date, and changing the time in the middle of the day would likely disrupt schools and businesses.
Some areas of the United States do not observe daylight saving time.
Most of Arizona as well as the entireties of Puerto Rico, Hawaii, America Samoa, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands do not observe daylight saving time.
And pets don’t either.
In fact, they might even be upset that their feeding schedule is disrupted.
Most smartphones and devices which connect to the internet will fall back on their own.
But you’ll likely have to manually change the time on appliances like microwaves and ovens.
So basically, daylight saving time is a funky little idea old Benny had in order to save energy… but we might not actually be saving energy at all.
