I finally understood what Daylight Saving Time means!

Ashly
2 min readMar 14, 2021

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Yes, you read that right. I finally understood what Daylight Saving Time means and I am enthralled! So let me be real for a second in case you’re from the US and are used to it by now before you start questioning me. I recently moved to the Land of the Free and I had the privilege of my colleagues dumbing down what ‘Daylight Saving Time’ is all about.

In simple terms, this is the practice of setting clocks forward by one hour during the spring season and backward by one hour in fall. The former is also commonly known as ‘spring forward’ and the latter as ‘fall back’. , WHICH LITERALLY MEANS THERE’LL BE ONE ‘23 HOUR DAY’ AND A ’25 HOUR DAY’ IN EACH YEAR. I sound too excited? Absolutely!

So when is it? (In a few hours, as I’m writing this) In America, it usually falls in March. This year it falls on the 14th of March. The clock won’t strike at 2:00 am! Similarly, on the 7th of this November, the clock will be set back to 1:00 am as it strikes 2:00! Confusing? Well, for an outsider, definitely.

Ben Franklin is usually credited for this idea in order to literally ‘save daylight’ as the name suggests. The beginnings of the entire system are pretty conflicting. The main idea behind it, as most people suggest, was energy saving. However, there have been pretty inconclusive studies on whether this system actually saves any energy at all. I wouldn’t go into much detail about it.

Nevertheless, don’t forget to set your clocks and sleep an hour early today!

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Ashly

A conversationalist on concepts ranging from music, true crime to science. she/her