Changing Your Clocks for Daylight Saving Time

Changing Your Clocks for Daylight Saving Time Changing Your Clocks for Daylight Saving Time Each year, the exact dates for instituting and ending daylight saving time change, but in the United States, it begins at 2 a.m. on the second Sunday of March and ends at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday of November. The concept  was designed to extend daylight later into the evening during the summer months by pushing clocks forward during that part of the year, usually by one hour. With the exception of countries near the equator, most nations of the world use some form of daylight saving time or have done so in the past. When to Change Your Clocks Its easy to remember which way to change the clock by remembering that you spring forward in the spring and fall back in the fall.  Specifically, you reset your clocks from 2 a.m. to 3 a.m. when daylight saving time begins and reset them from 2 a.m. to 1 a.m. when it ends. This chart provides beginning and ending dates for daylight saving time through 2032. Daylight Saving Time Calendar Dates Year Begins Ends 2019 March 10 November 3 2020 March 8 November 1 2021 March 14 November 7 2022 March 13 November 6 2023 March 12 November 5 2024 March 10 November 3 2025 March 9 November 2 2026 March 8 November 1 2027 March 14 November 7 2028 March 12 November 5 2029 March 11 November 4 2030 March 10 November 3 2031 March 9 November 2 2032 March 14 November 7 Why Do We Have Daylight Saving Time? Benjamin Franklin first broached the subject of moving clocks to take advantage of summer daylight in a 1784 essay. The idea did not take hold, though, until World War I, beginning with Germanys efforts to save fuel by moving clocks ahead one hour. The logic was that the more daylight people had later into the evening, the less energy they would need to use for artificial light. The idea spread throughout Europe, and the U.S. enacted a law in 1918 that established daylight saving time in addition to standardizing time zones. During World War II, the U.S. expanded daylight saving time to the full year. Then, after the conclusion of the war, there was no federal law, and states and local municipalities could make their own decisions about observing daylight saving time. This, not surprisingly, wreaked havoc with transportation schedules, broadcast schedules, and more, leading to a federal standard again being adopted in 1966. States still can exempt themselves from daylight saving time if their legislatures pass a law choosing not to follow it. As of 2018, Arizona and Hawaii do not observe daylight saving time. Why 2 A.M.? Changing clocks at 2 a.m. might seem like a strange and arbitrary time, but a logical argument exists for why that time was chosen. Its an hour with a limited number of activities that would be impacted during the time clocks are changed. Most businesses are closed, and buses and trains have minimal demand at that hour. Additionally, using 2 a.m. as the designated time prevents the confusion of a time change that would shift back to the previous day. Regardless, few people actually change their clocks at precisely 2 a.m. Most people switch their clocks before they go to bed the night before the change. Increasingly, technology is making it so that people dont have to do anything to change clocks. While some timepieces certainly still need to be changed manually, computers, cell phones, smart watches, cars, and appliances all can be programmed to make the change automatically at the appropriate time. Opposition to Daylight Saving Time Though the practice has become accepted, daylight saving time still has its share of critics. Farmers, in particular, generally start their day based on when the sun rises, which happens later in the day- according to the clock- when daylight saving time is in effect. In an article on webexhibits.org, a farmer notes that his livestock does not recognize that it is supposed to be an hour later or an hour earlier. Parents of schoolchildren also frequently criticized daylight saving time because it reduces available daylight in the morning at the beginning and at the end of the school year. The result is that children often are expected to walk to school or to bus stops during times of heavy traffic when it is still dark outside. Dayling saving time sometimes leads to confusion that can have consequences ranging from disastrous to amusing. In 1999, three Palestinian terrorists presumably blew themselves up because their targets in Israel had changed their clocks for the winter. Not realizing the difference in time led to the bombs detonating while they still were being transported to their destinations. On the lighter side, the time change can create inconsistencies with the birth certificates of twins if one is born just before clocks are pushed back and the other is born after they are set back. For example, if a twin is born 1 minute before clocks are to be set back, and the other twin is born 15 minutes later, after clocks had been set back, the birth certificates would indicate that the older twin was born at 1:59 a.m. while the younger twin was born at 1:14 a.m. How Much Money Does Daylight Saving Time Save? Little agreement exists on how much- if any- money daylight saving time saves. A study  done to measure the financial impact in Indiana after it adopted daylight saving time concluded that changing clocks actually had the opposite effect of the one intended. While people did use less artificial light, they spent more on heating and cooling, resulting in an overall increase in energy usage of 1 percent. In the warmest summer months, people used their air conditioning longer into the evening, and in the cooler spring and fall months, they used their heat more in the darker mornings. While daylight saving time arguably benefits tourism and other industries that profit from recreational activities, Forbes notes that television ratings take a hit because people are outside longer as opposed to inside watching their favorite programs. A 2012 paper in the Journal of Applied Psychology even argued that daylight saving time had a negative impact on productivity because it increased cyberloafing, when employees surf the internet instead of working. The authors argued that daylight saving time has a negative impact on sleep habits and patterns, and that the lack of quality sleep leads to increased cyberloafing.