Every year, on or around March 13th and then again on or around November 6th, the time changes. In November, we set our clocks back an hour, and then, in March, we jump ahead an hour. This is used to save energy and make better use of daylight, according to time and date.com. But does daylight savings help us achieve this? 

In reality, daylight savings just changes the time of the sunset and sunrise-it does not give us any extra daylight. And because this is the case, daylight savings is there for no reason. The rumor is that daylight savings is for farmers so their crops can grow more easily in the summer season when there is adequate light and they can have more time to work given more daylight is present later in the day, but this is not necessarily true. 

DST was first popular in Germany but was created by British scientist George Vernon Hudson and builder William Willett. Some people say that President Roosevelt came up with the idea to conserve fuel as well. But farmers still did not approve. They did not like the fact that in the fall, they would have less daylight later in the day to harvest their crops, and that in the Spring, they would be tired due to the jump in time. Later, the United Kingdom and Germany started using the system, because they saw it as a good way to conserve energy and gain daylight later on. The system soon spread to many other places in the world. 

Nowadays, most countries use DST, and it is an absolute nuisance. Although we have phones that change automatically, we still have to remember to change our other clocks, whether in our cars or schools, ahead and behind one hour. And in addition, DST causes health risks. According to time and date.com, a Swedish study showed that the risk of having a heart attack increases in the first three weekdays after switching to DST in the spring. The risk of car crashes on the Monday following DST also increases, since people are more tired. DST causes more accidents in the workplace than on other Mondays, such as spilling drinks, running into walls and doors, and more. And crucially, with DST comes higher rates of failed liver function since our internal clock regulates liver function and any disruption may cause issues. 

So if we have all of this information, why do we still change our clocks? Is it worth it to put ourselves at risk for a tiny bit of extra daylight? Is it worth it to inconvenience ourselves with changing our clocks? Not many people think so, which is why I think DST should be abolished. Without DST, we would not have to go out of our way to change clocks, we would not risk our health in the spring because of the lost hour of sleep and we would naturally know what time it is. 

This is the case with places that do not switch their clocks, like Arizona. They do not have to worry about losing that one hour of sleep, or switching clocks or anything to that degree. They just keep to the one-time system, even if it means sometimes being on Mountain time and sometimes on Pacific time because we are way too strict about sticking with this silly system. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? Yes, which is why we should stop using an outdated and not even relevant system. It is over one hundred years old, so it is time to catch up to our time. Bye-bye, daylight savings! We are done with your inconvenience!