This coming Sunday is daylight saving time, meaning Americans will be turning back their clocks an hour. We all do this every year, yet many of us never think about why we do so.

So why do we turn back the clock an hour each year?

It turns out that shifting an hour of daylight in the evening when we are awake rather than when we are sleeping maximizes society’s waking daylight hours. Doing this ends up saving electricity!

The idea for Daylight Saving was first suggested by Benjamin Franklin in the 18th century, but it was not until the early 1900s that it was actually implemented in the United States. The first country to start doing Daylight Saving was Germany in 1916. The country decided to start doing this as a way of saving electricity during World War I, and other countries quickly started following suit.

Extra light in the evening also means that Americans are more likely to leave their houses and spend money.

“Americans really do leave their homes when there is more sunlight at the end of the day,” said Michael Downing, a lecturer at Tufts University and the author of “Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time.”

“It has long been a cynical substitute for real energy policy. It’s the ideal energy policy because it has no apparent direct cost to consumers, and it asks no one to consume less,” Downing added.

What do you plan to do with the extra hour that you are going to gain this weekend? Let us know in the comments section!