Daylight saving time is here

If you still manually change your clocks, the time is at hand.

Daylight saving time has arrived — and given you one less hour of sleep. Here’s a look at the latest updates on daylight saving time, including efforts to eliminate the biannual time change.

When is daylight saving time 2024?

• Daylight saving time began Sunday, March 10, at 2 a.m., according to Almanac.com.
• The time on your phone should automatically update, although other clocks will need to be changed manually.

What’s the latest on the Sunshine Protection Act?

• The Sunshine Protection Act, which has Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., as a sponsor, was unanimously approved by the Senate in 2022 but stalled in the House in 2023, per Axios. There has been no new movement on the bill since then, according to Sleep Foundation.
• “If we can get this passed, we don’t have to keep doing this stupidity anymore,” Rubio said in 2022, the Deseret News reported. “Why we would enshrine this in our laws and keep it for so long is beyond me.”
• The Sunshine Protection Act would make daylight saving time permanent — “federal law currently prohibits states from enacting permanent daylight saving time,” per Sleep Foundation.

Health effects of daylight saving time

• Several studies have linked changing the clocks twice a year to a number of issues, including heart problems, depression, negative effects on sleep and car crashes, the Deseret News previously reported.
• “There has always been a debate in regards to daylight saving time,” Dr. Phyllis C. Zee, chief of sleep medicine in the Department of Neurology at Northwestern Medicine, previously said in a statement on Nm.org. “The science has evolved over the last decade to show the transition between standard time and daylight saving time is associated with adverse health consequences. The big question on the table right now is, should it be permanent standard time or permanent daylight saving time?”
• While sleep experts from groups like the American Academy of Sleep Medicine would prefer permanent standard time, like Arizona and Hawaii practice, permanent daylight time appears to be more popular to the general public, according to Sleep Foundation.
• But overall, roughly 61% of Americans want to eliminate the biannual clock change, according to a recent poll from Monmouth University.

Meanwhile in Utah ...

A 2022 Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll indicated that “fewer than one quarter of Utahns support the current system of changing clocks by an hour every spring and fall, with 71% of respondents saying they support adopting a permanent time year-round,” the Deseret News reported.

Forty-one percent of those respondents said they preferred permanent daylight saving time while 30% favored permanent standard time.

When does daylight saving time end in 2024?

• Daylight saving time will end Sunday, Nov. 3 at 2 a.m., according to Almanac.com.