Daylight savings time happens every year on the second Sunday of March. This year, 2025, it is going to fall on March 9th. This event is the practice of advancing clocks to make better use of the longer daylight available during summer so that darkness falls at a later clock time. In the spring, everyone gains an hour by springing forwards on the clock, and in the fall everyone loses an hour by falling backwards on the clock.
Sophomore Jaylee Holland doesn’t like how the time change in the spring makes her lose an hour of sleep.
“I don’t like daylight savings time because it makes me lose an hour of sleep, and then I’m tired for the rest of the day.” Holland says.
Besides the U.S and Canada, the only other countries in the world that practice daylight savings are Europe, Paraguay, Chile, Cuba, Haiti, the Levant, New Zealand, and parts of Australia. In the United States, Arizona and Hawaii do not practice daylight savings like the rest of the county, but every other state does.
Daylight savings was officially started by Benjamin Franklin in the 18th century mostly because he wanted to conserve energy. Waking up closer to sunrise gave him more hours of daylight to illuminate his home, so he didn’t have to use as many smokey and expensive candles, which conserved lots of energy.
Bella Valenzano, a sophomore, doesn’t like how daylight savings time switches up the clocks so much.
“I dislike daylight savings because I spend half the year getting used to the time change and then it just changes on me,” Valenzano comments.
One of the main goals of daylight savings is to give humans as much time as possible to enjoy their day and the sunlight. However, sometimes students that must wake up early for school don’t like the spring part of daylight savings time, because they lose an hour of sleep during the night. During the fall students are lucky enough to gain an hour of sleep when the clocks fall backward an hour, but spring is not as fun.
Most countries near the equator and 2 U.S. states, Arizona and Hawaii, don’t need to have daylight savings time because of their location. Being near the equator means the amount of sunlight during the day doesn’t vary much at all during the year.
Bella Valenzano, a sophomore, thinks there are some benefits with the time change, like how she can have a little more time in her day during the spring and summer.
“With daylight savings time, I do like how the days are longer because it gets dark later,” Valenzano says. “Then I have time to get more things done during my day.”
