It is that time of year again where our phones automatically fall back an hour, or so we hope, and we gain an extra hour of sleep. Although many people appreciate the extra hour, daylights savings time is a thing of the past and completely unnecessary. 

Daylight savings time is heavily backed behind misconceptions and falsities. In fact, Benjamin Franklin is often mistakenly attributed with the creation of daylight savings time when he wrote about it in a satirical essay in 1784, suggesting the idea was merely a joke as noted in an article written on foxnews.com. 

According to timeanddate.com, Germany was the first country to popularize daylight savings time, and the United States quickly followed as an attempt to save fuel and aid in war efforts. However, daylights savings was never meant as a permanent measure and was removed following the end of the war. 

Daylight savings was reintroduced as a way to save energy. Yet, recent research suggests that it actually increases energy use. According to National Geographic, temperature, not lighting, consumes the most energy. Conserving an hour’s worth of lighting does not offset the use of an air conditioner.  

Additionally, many argue that farmers need daylight savings, yet that is another myth. Farmers don’t like the later sunrise brought upon by daylight savings because dairy cows, just like us, adjust poorly to the moving clock.  

Sadly, the sudden change in time throws off our body rhythms. Because of this, research has found a 5 percent increase in the risk of heart attacks right after the start of daylight savings, along with an increase in traffic accidents, workplace injuries, and suicide rates as stated in the New York Times.  

Overall, eliminating Daylight Savings Time provides endless benefits. People will no longer have to struggle to figure out what time it is in Arizona or Hawaii which don’t change their clocks and airlines won’t have to shift flights to handle the changes in spring and fall, saving the industry hundreds of millions of dollars.  

So, if congress wants to keep daylight savings time around as a way to implement energy conservation, they may want to start doing their research.  Instead of daylight saving time, this country starts creating policies that are actually beneficial, such as climate control efforts.