In Rails 4.x, when we save an ActiveRecord object then Rails automatically updates fields updated_at or updated_on. 1 2>> user = User.new(name: 'John', email: 'john@example.com') 3>> user.save 4 INSERT INTO "users" ("name", "created_at", "updated_at", "email") VALUES (?, ?, ?, ?) [["name", "John"], ["created_at", 2016-03-16 09:12:44 UTC], ["updated_at", 2016-03-16 09:12:44 UTC], ["email", "john@ex