Daylight Savings Time Meant More Outside Playtime Following School
Opportunities Abound Between “Spring Back” & “Fall Forward”
We adjust our clocks every spring and every fall, but why?
The practice of Daylight Savings Time emerged in 1918. Every year, most Americans tinker with their clocks on the second Sunday of March and first Sunday of November.
It’s a law rich with nostalgia. Who doesn’t remember its effect on the school year? In the spring, DST shortened a weekend, but made it possible to play outside late into the evening. Parents everywhere must be thinking of their old picture albums about now. If they convert photos to digital, a new generation of kids can enjoy them as well. Few images illustrate the fun of Daylight Savings Time better than this picture of young girls playing.
That’s because in the fall, the sky begins to darken sooner in the day and sunsets start appearing earlier in the evening. You have to drive home from work in the dark. We may add an hour one weekend to “fall back,” but the freedom to pursue outdoor activities is much more limited. Still, this darkness does make trick-or-treating on Halloween a mysterious experience, thanks to the darkened sky.
Believe it or not, at one point local governments across the nation set their own time. But the proliferation of the railroad system meant more standard times had to be established to allow for railroad schedules. It was the railroad industry that created the time zones we have today, though Congress approved them in 1918. Daylight Savings Time has been practiced on and off since then. Today, most everyone except residents in Hawaii, most of Arizona and some U.S. territories heed DST.
Over the years, the “spring forward” date has been creeping up earlier and earlier in the year. What once happened on the last Sunday in April now occurs more than a month before that. Convert photos to digital format so you can easily go through them whenever you wish. Images of holidays and school concerts have a way of showcasing these gradual, seasonal changes.
Daylight Savings Time technically starts and ends at 2 a.m., though most people likely just adjust their clocks before drifting off to sleep or when they first wake up in the morning. The goal is to reduce the country’s energy consumption, though there is some debate over whether that is actually achievable through this process.