The Time Has Come..To Spring Forward

Get ready to "spring forward" as people throughout the United States lose an hour of sleep in the early morning of Sunday.

Daylight saving time begins at 2 a.m. local time on Sunday, March 10. While "smart" devices may change time automatically, don't forget to turn manual clocks an hour ahead, from 2 a.m. to 3 a.m.

Daylight saving time (DST) is designed to provide an extra hour of evening sunlight, and it will stay in effect for eight months until Nov. 3, when daylight saving time ends for the year.

While the Uniform Time Act of 1966 promoted a uniform system of time across the country, it did allow states to choose whether they wanted to participate.

Hawaii and most of Arizona — except the Navajo Nation — remain on standard time throughout the year, meaning they don’t change their clocks like the rest of country. It means that for much of the year, the time difference between New York and Phoenix is three hours — but from November to March, Phoenix residents are just two hours behind.

Other U.S. territories including American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands also remain on standard time year-round.

Studies over the last 25 years have shown the one-hour change disrupts body rhythms tuned to Earth’s rotation, adding fuel to the debate over whether having Daylight Saving Time in any form is a good idea.

The issue is that for every argument there is a counterargument. There are studies, for example, that show we have more car accidents when people lose an extra hour of sleep. There are also studies that show robberies decline when there is an extra hour of sunlight at the end of the day. We also know that people suffer more heart attacks at the start of Daylight Saving Time. But what about our mental health? People seem to be happier when there is an extra hour of daylight.

According to livesceience.com, Benjamin Franklin, the brainchild of DST, proposed the idea in 1784 as a way to conserve energy, said David Prerau, author of  "Seize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time". Ideally, people would spend time outside, enjoying the extra hour of daylight, rather than sit inside, wasting energy on lighting, Franklin reasoned.

However, it's hard to say whether daylight saving translates into energy savings, according to several studies, including a 2007 Department of Energy study and a 1997 study on a residential home in Kansas, Live Science previously reported.

Even so, Franklin's idea spread in the 20th century. In 1908, a city in Ontario, Canada, became the first modern region to officially implement DST, according to Time and Date. The Germans began following DST in May 1916, with the goal of conserving fuel during World War I. The rest of Europe followed suit soon after, and the United States officially adopted daylight saving time in 1918.