Daylight saving time: What's the point?

Spring isn't that far away, and daylight saving time (also called daylight savings time) is already here (or almost). At 2:00 a.m., we'll be springing forward yet again, leading to confusion, lateness and grumpy attitudes. At least, that's how it works for me. How did daylight savings time start, and why do we still do it?

While first jokingly suggested by Ben Franklin in 1784, daylight saving time didn't actually happen until World War I. At that time, Germany put the practice into place to conserve fuel for the war effort, and Britain soon followed suit. When the U.S. joined the war in 1918, we did the same. This saved energy because the extra hour of daylight meant an hour less of using artificial light, which required the use of coal. After the war, Congress did away with the time change.

World War II brought back the practice to conserve energy for the war. For a few years, the time change was in effect year round. After World War II, however, people wanted to keep the time change in order to enjoy the extra time in the summer sun after work. Over the next several years, some towns kept the change, and others reverted back to standard time.

Congress passed the Uniform Time Act in 1966 to force states to decide whether or not to implement daylight saving time. Each year, the federal government chooses the days we set our clocks forward and back. And if it feels like we are doing this earlier than we used to (and that it's lasting longer), it's true. Since 2007, it has extended from March to November.

But does daylight saving time actually save any energy? Maybe not, according to some studies. Though electricity consumption is reduced in the evening hours, it increases during the dark mornings, essentially canceling out any gains.

While we have more daylight in the spring and summer after work, the time switch can be tough on our bodies. According to a 2007 study in BMC Biology, night owls have trouble adjusting to moving forward in the spring while early birds have problems with falling back in autumn.

Fellow night owls, we'll get our time back on November 3 this year.

Image courtesy of morgueFile user muyral.