I feel like I’m going insane reading these comments about how difficult it is to read analog clocks, how it needs too much understanding of maths, how it takes too long,…
Can someone please confirm: you just look, for a fraction of a second, at the clock face and know the time, right?
Learning to read the clock was like… A couple of lessons and some homework in the 2nd grade, and everyone got it.
Understanding the concept is fast. Getting good at sight-reading a clock face actually takes time to get familiar with it. If you only ever really see the clock in school, and You can choose to ignore it for phones or other digital clocks, you’re never gonna get good enough at it that you’ll be as fast as checking a phone.
I am in the transition age range of people who have trouble reading analog clocks and I must admit I had trouble with it until I started wearing a watch as an accessory as a teenager. The issue isn’t that it’s hard, it’s just something that you need practice at to do quickly and a lot of young people just don’t look at analog clocks to tell time very often. It’s not a matter of being stupid or not being taught how to do it, it’s like mental “muscle memory” that just isn’t built up in a world where digital clocks are everywhere, including in your pocket 24/7
Watches were pretty ubiquitous before the smart phone was popularized. Though, digital watches were common since the '80s, so I’m not sure how much that really figures in. There is some truth, though, in needing to regularly do it to keep the skill.
It isn’t lazy to have a mastered skill and use it. It’s lazy not taking the time to master it.
That being said, the biggest lazies of them all are the curriculum writers which don’t make teaching future working adults how to use a clock a priority in grade school.
Throughout middle school and high school, my bedroom clock was one of these, just the mechanism, no face, no numbers, hanging off the edge of a shelf. I had no trouble reading it. I still can easily read an analog clock with no numbers or any face marks.
I don’t know, I’ve never particularly liked analogue clocks. I don’t think I ever thought of them as difficult to read, but it’s far superior to look at an exact number like digital usually features.
Disagree - it rarely matters to me if it’s 13:24:56 or 13:25:05, but I do find the instant and intuitive gauging of time deltas super useful (as in, how long it’s going to be to the full hour / to quarter past / … ). Not saying you can’t get that info from a digital clock as well, of course you can; but the physicality of analog clocks lends a good bit of intuition to this, I feel.
I get that, but I personally find that I often do care about the exact time, down to the minutes, and that’s harder to track with an analogue clock. I don’t have particular problems in reading them, I just often prefer digital clocks.
But I will agree that I feel analogue clocks give a better vibe of the time, since its basically a pie chart of how far you are in the day.
To be fair if you are never exposed to it (and judging by the comments that seems to have happened in the US) you can’t tell the time by “just looking at it”. But analog clocks are objectively simpler to teach to children (let’s say three to eight years old).
Clock reading was covered in kindergarten and cursive writing taught in 1st grade. These were some of the first wrinkles pushed into our little growing brains in the early 80s by school. That these things are no longer being taught so early explains why so many people are willing to immediately accept the Google AI overview as gospel and are wearing Crocs everywhere they go.
FWIW, I went to school in mid-2000. My sibling even later. They still taught it back then, and at least here, I am pretty sure they still do. (And why would they not, after all…)
Not exactly responding to you, but wanted to post somewhere where people would see it (hopefully)
We are not removing clocks or the standards, but it is not as important as many other standards in my grade level and 3rd grade. As a joke, I am going to bring a kid to our intervention team who can’t tell time as his only academic issue. We will all get a good laugh out of it.
Every 2nd/3rd grade teacher I’ve worked with believes their students can tell time by the end of the year. This being said, regression is a well known phenomenon in education over breaks, but this is regression is due to analog clocks disappearing in society I assume and devastating to a newly acquired skill. Here are the 2nd grade standards, I would say this and counting money have become completely unsupported at home in my Title 1 school. Most teachers I have ever met care about kids and want them to learn, but there is only so much to do. They spend a lot more time out of school in their childhood than other places. Do the math!
2.OA.A Adding/Subtracting within 100 word problem and representations
2.OA.B Memorizing add/sub facts to 20
2.OA.C Equal groups (building blocks for multiplication)
2.NBT.A Place value (broken into 4 substandards, its kind of really fucking important)
2.NBT.B Place value (broken into 4 more substandards, its kind of really fucking important)
2.MD.A Measure and estimate in metric and standard (broken into 4 substandards, it is kind of really fucking important)
2.MD.B Addition and Subtraction in relation to length
2.MD.C Time to nearest 5 minutes and money
2.MD.D Interpreting graphs
Literally noone I know in real life has any problem whatsoever reading analog clocks, no matter the “brain capacity”, neuro-typicality, state of drunkenness,… It is an extremely simple “skill”.
Same reason you might use 22/7 instead of the exact value of π. If I look at a clock and see it’s about ten to 2, it’s rare to never that I actually need to know it’s 1:53:22.57365785285978520256734567314854372354675466099.
They are actually a helpful way to show passage of time visually, without abstract math knowledge. For example my son has downsydrome, he could read time from analog and understand passage of time and time left on it, but numbers counting up to 60 was abstract… Like its 47 minutes past 5 how close to the hour is it getting? No clue unless he wrote it out as a math question and did the subtraction. But for him those were meaningless numbers anyway. 15 was no different than 45 for him. But visual cues of quarter past and quarter to made sense for him
I feel like I’m going insane reading these comments about how difficult it is to read analog clocks, how it needs too much understanding of maths, how it takes too long,…
Can someone please confirm: you just look, for a fraction of a second, at the clock face and know the time, right?
Learning to read the clock was like… A couple of lessons and some homework in the 2nd grade, and everyone got it.
Understanding the concept is fast. Getting good at sight-reading a clock face actually takes time to get familiar with it. If you only ever really see the clock in school, and You can choose to ignore it for phones or other digital clocks, you’re never gonna get good enough at it that you’ll be as fast as checking a phone.
I am in the transition age range of people who have trouble reading analog clocks and I must admit I had trouble with it until I started wearing a watch as an accessory as a teenager. The issue isn’t that it’s hard, it’s just something that you need practice at to do quickly and a lot of young people just don’t look at analog clocks to tell time very often. It’s not a matter of being stupid or not being taught how to do it, it’s like mental “muscle memory” that just isn’t built up in a world where digital clocks are everywhere, including in your pocket 24/7
Watches were pretty ubiquitous before the smart phone was popularized. Though, digital watches were common since the '80s, so I’m not sure how much that really figures in. There is some truth, though, in needing to regularly do it to keep the skill.
I can confirm. You are not insane.
Some of these comments are made by lazy idiots arguing that there is nothing wrong with being lazy idiot.
I don’t understand how you could possibly classify looking at a clock as lazy.
Read again.
I just don’t see what any of this has to do with laziness.
It isn’t lazy to have a mastered skill and use it. It’s lazy not taking the time to master it.
That being said, the biggest lazies of them all are the curriculum writers which don’t make teaching future working adults how to use a clock a priority in grade school.
You don’t see how people too lazy to understand the clock are too lazy?
I do not. I don’t conceive of looking at something as having anything to do with the concept of laziness. I feel like I’m missing something huge.
In this case I am afraid I doubt in my ability to explain anything to someone of your ability.
That doesn’t bode well for you, then, given that I am several orders of magnitude morally and intellectually superior to you.
Throughout middle school and high school, my bedroom clock was one of these, just the mechanism, no face, no numbers, hanging off the edge of a shelf. I had no trouble reading it. I still can easily read an analog clock with no numbers or any face marks.
Congratulations! ⭐
I don’t know, I’ve never particularly liked analogue clocks. I don’t think I ever thought of them as difficult to read, but it’s far superior to look at an exact number like digital usually features.
Disagree - it rarely matters to me if it’s 13:24:56 or 13:25:05, but I do find the instant and intuitive gauging of time deltas super useful (as in, how long it’s going to be to the full hour / to quarter past / … ). Not saying you can’t get that info from a digital clock as well, of course you can; but the physicality of analog clocks lends a good bit of intuition to this, I feel.
I get that, but I personally find that I often do care about the exact time, down to the minutes, and that’s harder to track with an analogue clock. I don’t have particular problems in reading them, I just often prefer digital clocks.
But I will agree that I feel analogue clocks give a better vibe of the time, since its basically a pie chart of how far you are in the day.
Yeah, vibe of the time is a good description
That does make sense.
To be fair if you are never exposed to it (and judging by the comments that seems to have happened in the US) you can’t tell the time by “just looking at it”. But analog clocks are objectively simpler to teach to children (let’s say three to eight years old).
Clock reading was covered in kindergarten and cursive writing taught in 1st grade. These were some of the first wrinkles pushed into our little growing brains in the early 80s by school. That these things are no longer being taught so early explains why so many people are willing to immediately accept the Google AI overview as gospel and are wearing Crocs everywhere they go.
Oooh, that’s harsh.
FWIW, I went to school in mid-2000. My sibling even later. They still taught it back then, and at least here, I am pretty sure they still do. (And why would they not, after all…)
Yes, this meme is pretty obviously fake.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/schools-removing-analog-clocks/
Not exactly responding to you, but wanted to post somewhere where people would see it (hopefully)
We are not removing clocks or the standards, but it is not as important as many other standards in my grade level and 3rd grade. As a joke, I am going to bring a kid to our intervention team who can’t tell time as his only academic issue. We will all get a good laugh out of it.
Every 2nd/3rd grade teacher I’ve worked with believes their students can tell time by the end of the year. This being said, regression is a well known phenomenon in education over breaks, but this is regression is due to analog clocks disappearing in society I assume and devastating to a newly acquired skill. Here are the 2nd grade standards, I would say this and counting money have become completely unsupported at home in my Title 1 school. Most teachers I have ever met care about kids and want them to learn, but there is only so much to do. They spend a lot more time out of school in their childhood than other places. Do the math!
2.OA.A Adding/Subtracting within 100 word problem and representations
2.OA.B Memorizing add/sub facts to 20
2.OA.C Equal groups (building blocks for multiplication)
2.NBT.A Place value (broken into 4 substandards, its kind of really fucking important)
2.NBT.B Place value (broken into 4 more substandards, its kind of really fucking important)
2.MD.A Measure and estimate in metric and standard (broken into 4 substandards, it is kind of really fucking important)
2.MD.B Addition and Subtraction in relation to length
2.MD.C Time to nearest 5 minutes and money 2.MD.D Interpreting graphs
2.G Shapes and Attributes
Yes.
I used to have some complex thinking I was slow at reading time in an analog watch, these days I feel much more confident.
Lemmites will never miss an opportunity to make things difficult to draw attention to themselves.
deleted by creator
Man I always felt analog clocks are just old age. I felt like that for about 30 years since I was a little kid. Its easier to read digital
How tf are we in 2025 and people are still spouting off as if all humans have the same brain capacity and capability?
Literally noone I know in real life has any problem whatsoever reading analog clocks, no matter the “brain capacity”, neuro-typicality, state of drunkenness,… It is an extremely simple “skill”.
Congratulations? Your bias doesn’t prove a thing
Yeah but the “hard” work of reading an analog clock apparently offends some people. Just more of “feelings” nonsense vs. facts
I’m 35. Math major. Work in STEM. Well educated.
I hate analogue clocks. Why use subpar way of reading time if digital is so much better?
Same reason you might use 22/7 instead of the exact value of π. If I look at a clock and see it’s about ten to 2, it’s rare to never that I actually need to know it’s 1:53:22.57365785285978520256734567314854372354675466099.
They are actually a helpful way to show passage of time visually, without abstract math knowledge. For example my son has downsydrome, he could read time from analog and understand passage of time and time left on it, but numbers counting up to 60 was abstract… Like its 47 minutes past 5 how close to the hour is it getting? No clue unless he wrote it out as a math question and did the subtraction. But for him those were meaningless numbers anyway. 15 was no different than 45 for him. But visual cues of quarter past and quarter to made sense for him
Because it’s not! Glad to help you clear that up.