Dr. Rebecca Struthers

And the result of that was we get 12 longer hours in the summer for daytime and 12 shorter hours for night and the reverse in winter.

But clocks being machines, they want to do the same thing over and over again.

So it's the invention of the clock really that started to drive us towards the idea of having hours of uniform length.

Having the extra hour of sunshine in the evening gives us more time to socialise, whether it's meeting friends after work, going out for picnics.

It's also great for tourism.

They've calculated it could benefit the economy by billions of pounds a year.

Yeah, there are definitely social benefits.

Things like a reduction in crime rates.

A survey in the US found that an average reduction of crime rate of 7% overall and up to 27% reduced robberies in the evening because it's safe to be traveling around in daylight.

You can see someone.

It's easier to identify people.

It puts off would-be criminals.

It also reduces road accidents in the evening too.

So there have been estimates that it could save hundreds of millions of pounds for the NHS and save hundreds of lives a year.

No, is the honest answer.

So this is the interesting thing.

It's one of the great myths of daylight savings time.

It was introduced to save energy, but studies have subsequently found that the energy savings are minimal.

A study in 2008 found that there was a saving of 0.03%.

energy savings by observing daylight savings time.