What is the purpose of using the TIMESTAMP data type in MYSQL?

A TIMESTAMP data type is used to store the combination of date and time value which is 19 characters long.

The format of TIMESTAMP is YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS. It can store data from "1970-01-01 00:00:01" UTC to "2038-01-19 03:14:07" UTC. By default, the current date and time of the server get inserted in the field of this data type when a new record is inserted or updated.

Example:

 CREATE TABLE categories (
    id INT AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
    name VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
    created_at TIMESTAMP DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP
);