by Jessie Blaeser

Daylight Saving Time comes to an end on Nov. 3, generously providing an extra hour of sleep as its parting gift. Every year, most areas in the U.S. move their clocks one hour forward in the spring and one hour back in the fall, ostensibly to make better use of daylight. Critics of Daylight Savings say it is at best “unsettling” and at worst a “fraud.” Others don’t mind it, especially when it means an extra hour of sleep over the weekend. What do you think?

According to Time and Date, Daylight Saving was popularized by Germany in the early 1900s. The idea behind the time change was that resetting clocks could increase energy efficiency:

Clocks in the German Empire, and its ally Austria, were turned ahead by one hour on April 30, 1916—2 years into World War I. The rationale was to minimize the use of artificial lighting to save fuel for the war effort.

According to the Atlantic’s Alexander Abad-Santos, Daylight Saving Time results in a number of adverse effects. The twice-a-year time change impacts our mood, productivity, sleep cycles, energy consumption and more–not for the better. He calls Daylight Saving Time the “greatest continuing fraud ever perpetrated on the American people,” explaining:

Why we try and "maximize daylight" like we're plants is actually an archaic practice first thought up in the late 1700s and often attributed to Benjamin Franklin. As some elementary school teacher may have explained to you, this was a practice to accommodate agricultural workers and farmers (wrong, and we'll get to this in a minute) or to lower the nation's electricity usage.

Some say one should look at the bigger picture of Daylight Saving in order to see the benefits. Popular Mechanic’s Dan Nosowitz argues the net effect of DST over the course of its eight-month lifespan outweighs the negative impacts in the short-term. For example:

A new paper from the Brookings Institute finds that there's a 7 percent decrease in crime following the shift to DST. In 2007, when DST was extended through November 1 (a decision on which Prerau was an advisor), that drop resulted in an estimated $59 million in savings from robberies not committed. (If you include crimes for which we must estimate dollar amounts, such as rape that number goes up to $246 million.

Nosowitz also argues DST has a net-positive impact on traffic accidents (as he points out, it’s easier to drive during the day). When you zoom out of the eight months DST takes effect, you begin to see a much different picture of the value it provides.

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