It gets dark at six. True, pitch-black, darkness at 6:00 p.m.? It’s absurd.

Daylight saving is the culprit here.

Daylight saving time, or DST, is setting clocks forward by an hour in the spring and setting the clocks back by an hour in the fall. As the name suggests, its intended purpose is to get better use of the daylight hours.

This year, it ran from Sunday, Mar. 13 to Sunday, Nov. 6 and this change might the final one in the U.S. if the House of Representatives passes the Sunshine Protection Act. The Senate passed this bill on Mar. 15, 2022. This would mean that we will stay in DST.

Most of Europe, North America, parts of Asia and parts of South America and Oceania use DST. In the US, Arizona and Hawaii are the two states that don’t observe daylight saving time.

DST spread all over the world during World War I and was first enacted in 1912 in the United States. After World War I ended, many countries reverted to standard time and didn’t use DST again until World War II.

There are many theories around the origin of daylight saving time. The more common versions either give Benjamin Franklin credit after his visit to France, or explain DST was established to help farmers.

However, neither story has been proven. In fact, there is more evidence that farmers dislike DST, considering many of them have lobbied against the time change.

There are also studies that show that DST can be damaging. It results in a temporary daze that affects us and our pets.

Daylight saving time can confuse many people’s sleep schedules and throw off individual’s internal clocks. However, there are even more severe consequences attributed to DST.

“Switching to daylight saving time is associated with cardiovascular morbidity, a higher risk of a heart attack or stroke, and an increase in hospital admissions for irregular heartbeats,” MD, Anita Shelgikar said.

Daylight saving time is an unexpected controversial topic. Ironically, time will only tell if this keeping it consistent will be the right decision.