What Is Daylight Savings Time All About?

 In Blog

Every year, you can feel it in the air as the weather changes with the seasons. Along with differing temperatures, the seasons also bring varying amounts of daylight. During the summer, you’ll get a few more hours of sunlight in the evening, which makes doing things after work more enjoyable. During the winter, you’re likely to get less light during the evening as the sun sets at much earlier times.

In order to help compensate with this shifting natural seasonal progression, daylight savings time is held in consideration throughout many countries around the world. What is daylight savings time all about? Here’s a further look at how DST helps savor those precious hours of sunlight and account for the shifting seasons throughout the year.

What Is Daylight Savings Time?

Daylight-Savings-TimeIn order to help compensate for shifting natural light, daylight savings time is when clocks shift from observing Standard Time during the summer and winter months to help with the light that’s available. The old saying, “spring forward, fall back” can help you to remember to set your clocks forward in the spring and back in the fall. Without DST, winter would get darker even earlier in the afternoon. And while we may all like the sunny summer evenings, that may not be the case if the sun was shining late into the night. With the adjustment for daylight savings, we can accommodate for the natural sunlight that is available throughout the year.

Who Started Daylight Savings Time?

With his essay, “An Economical Project For Diminishing the Cost of Light,” Benjamin Franklin outlined how societies could benefit from adjustments to daylight savings time. Due to the impact of the printing press and the spread of mass media at that time, Benjamin Franklin gets plenty of well-earn credit for his essay. However, it wasn’t completely new ideas that he was writing about.

In fact, the principles of DST can be traced back as far as to the Mayan Civilizations, who showed similar changes in daily patterns based on the time of year. In addition, DST has been observed in Europe since the early 1900’s, where as Benjamin Franklin didn’t impose it in America until 1942.  

Is DST Used Everywhere?

Daylight savings time is common throughout the world, but it isn’t used everywhere. In addition to the countries that do not change their clocks, even states like Arizona and Hawaii also do not observe DST changes either. It’s also important to keep in mind that while the common standard of change is one hour, there are some places that will observe a half-hour of change during DST.

Daylight savings time may not be something you think much about. However, it has a big impact on the economy, society, and your overall general health. With the observation of daylight savings time, there are more hours in the day to do the things that you enjoy. It’s a simple change, but it makes a big difference.

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