Daylight savings time ends on Sunday, Nov. 5, meaning the clocks rewind one hour in the United States. Hawaii and Arizona are the only official states that no longer participate in daylight savings time, so they stay in standard time throughout the full calendar year. The change takes place at 2 a.m. on November 5, meaning people will receive the extra hour of sleep on that day.
As a result of the end of daylight savings, the sun will rise and set earlier, leading to the first sunset after daylight savings taking place at around 4:55 p.m., which is much earlier than daylight savings summers.
Although there was talk last year of a bill known as the Sunshine Protection Act passing, which would have made daylight savings time permanent, the act did not pass or get voted on successfully in Congress. The proposed law has been considered in Congress every session since 2018 but fails to pass every time, whether it be ignored by one house of the legislatures or stuck in committee.
Even though daylight savings remains a controversial practice, its end taking place in November is much preferred over the start of it in March. This is because people will gain an hour of sleep at the end as opposed to losing one at the beginning.
A victim of the lost hour of sleep, Kat Tran (11) says about the beginning of daylight savings this past year, “I had to get up at 6 a.m. for a competition that day, so it ended up feeling like having to get up at 5 a.m.”
This is one of the most popular criticisms of the implementation of daylight savings time every year as it disrupts the sleep schedules of nearly every person in America. The natural sleep patterns and circadian rhythms of people take days to weeks to effectively adjust to the changes in time that take place no less than twice every year.
The critics of daylight savings often cite the negative effects of it on human health, but its original purpose is to save the cost of fuel and electricity by “adding” an extra hour of daylight to each day. It was enacted for the first time in World War I.
In terms of student opinion, Shane Eicholtz (12) says about the time change, “I believe that daylight savings time was a good idea when it was invented in response to World War 1. However, I believe that daylight savings is stupid and makes everything more complicated.”
In 2008, the Department of Energy found that people use 0.5% less energy during daylight savings time, which although may not sound like a lot, actually adds up considering the notable use of each individual in the United States.
Daylight savings will return on Mar. 10, 2024, in which the clocks will move forward again one hour, causing people to lose an hour of sleep, assuming no act is passed in that time.
