Daylight Saving Time 2013: When to Spring Forward Your Clocks

Daylight saving time is just around the corner. And by "just around the corner," we mean this weekend.

At 2 a.m. on Sunday, March 10, we'll be "springing forward" and moving your clocks forward an hour. In other words, we'll all be losing an hour of sleep Saturday into Sunday night.

The benefit is that we’ll get more sunlight later in the evening and it’s a pleasant sign that spring is just around the corner (Spring 2013 officially starts on Wednesday, March 20).

Many electronic devices, like your cell phone and computer, automatically adjust when Daylight Savings Time begins or ends.

So, why do we do this at 2 a.m., and why shift our clocks at all?

According to Webhibit:

In the United States, 2 a.m. was originally chosen as the changeover time because it was practical and minimized disruption. Most people were at home and this was the time when the fewest trains were running. It is late enough to minimally affect bars and restaurants, and it prevents the day from switching to yesterday, which would be confusing. It is early enough that the entire continental U.S. switches by daybreak, and the changeover occurs before most early shift workers and early churchgoers are affected.

The larger reason for shifting our clocks, however, is energy conservation.

Ben Franklin first suggested shifting the clocks to save on candles, according to Discovery, but no one took him up on his idea at the time.

The first official national time shift wasn’t until 1918. Then the United States stopped the practice, started again during World War II for energy conservation reasons, stopped when the war was over and re-started with the Uniform Time Act in 1966. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 lengthened daylight saving to eight months instead of six months.