How is the next generation going to pass their annual Medicare health assessments if they can’t draw a clock that reads 9:50 or whatever?
I personally think it’s important to be able to read an analog clock just as it’s important to be able to read cursive writing. Once learned, it’s something you always have.
Furthermore, as I noted, there’s the general impact of analog clock reading on basic cognition involving spatial angle quantification, spatial orientation, circle geometry, etc.
No, in theory we don’t need that area of cognitive enrichment to be linked specifically to telling time, but it does happen to be one of the brain-boosting value-adds that time-telling with analog clocks has historically provided.
Valid points But in order for this to work doesn’t that mean they need to use an analog clock all the time?
I’m perfectly capable of reading and analog clock. But I don’t because I don’t have any in my house and I just never see them or notice them around.
I mean it’s like an exercise isn’t it? If you don’t use it you lose it?
I don’t know, but I find that skills that have gotten rusty are quick to come back. 40 years ago I was a Russian linguist. I stopped using it when I got out of the Navy and didn’t give it much of a thought for about 15 years when I started working with a Russian. At the time I had to really focus on reading Cyrillic letters, and do a lot of translating in my head. Within a few weeks it became second nature again, and I started reading books in Russian and watching movies in Russian. Even today I still sometimes dream in Russian. As they say - some things are like riding a bike.
But you can’t do that if you never learn it in the first place. Learning a language at 17 was easy. Now, I might have some problems.
To answer the title of the thread: yes, I think it’s important, if not critical to survival, if nothing else for
Knowing how dials and analog clocks work adds a dimension to one’s apprehension of the world and the way it works. The world spins, the planet circles, the music of the sphere’s is mostly circular-ish. I don’t remember for sure, but I don’t think it is coincidental that there are 60 minutes in an hour and 360 degrees in a circle, and the latter is also useful knowledge.
The analogy to cursive writing is apt, I think. You might not encounter it very often, but if your Aunt Mary sends you a nice hand-written note with your birthday check, in her spidery Spencerian writing, it would be nice to be able to read and respond to it. Even nicer would be if you could hand-write a response (anyway, she would think it was nicer than typing it). Did you ever send anyone a condolence note or card? Typescript is very cold in such circumstances. So knowing both of these things makes you a better-rounded, more civilized individual. It is not necessary to survival, usually, to be well-rounded, but it does make you more interesting to other people, and the world more interesting to you.
60 minutes in an hour and 360 degrees in a circle both stem from the Babylonian number system, which was base(ish) 60 (the “base” of a number system isn’t perfectly well-defined for non-place-value systems). 360 degrees in a circle was probably also influenced by being close to 365 days in a year (so the Sun would move close to 1 degree per day, relative to the background stars).
The more likely scenario: some X-Gener will mistakenly pass a dementia test because the Zoomer giving the test won’t know what the correct answer should be and just says “whatever”.
Imho analog clocks are a great introduction to numbers. It can help a child make a physical connection with numbers.
The clock was on the 10 and now it’s 20. 10 minutes has passed. The child can literally see the seconds hand moving.
The minutes hand is on 45. It’s 15 mins until the next hour. That’s a demonstration of subtraction.
Best of all it’s done in their heads. No one is writing down 60 - 40. You look at the clock and know it’s 20 till the next hour.
The use of a analog clock requires the child to think about numbers throughout the day.
They don’t realize they’re practicing math.
This is what a well-rounded base of knowledge can provide. I would happily converse with you at a party.
Let’s extend that out to latitude and longitude, and once you also understand that 1 nautical mile = ~6000 ft* = 1 minute of latitude it becomes very easy to understand that the circumference of Earth is 21600 nautical miles. This is also why it’s important for mariners and aviators to use knots (nm/h) instead of mph for measuring speed.
*It’s actually 6076 ft.
I think it makes the most sense for all people to be able to read a sundial.
Pretty dang hard for some of us. There was never any formal instruction about time-telling until 2nd grade at my school. The teacher spent about 30 minutes on the topic, then announced a test for the next day. When I got home with my assignment that afternoon, it became very clear to my parents that I couldn’t read an analog clock at all (my mom was convinced that the teacher couldn’t either, given how it was basically glossed over in class). For the rest of the afternoon and evening, my parents tried to teach me to read a clock. I don’t remember how I did on the test, but I still couldn’t read an analog clock after that. By the time I was in junior high I could, but I had to study the clock face for an uncomfortably long period of time; if someone asked me for the time, I would often just hold out my watch so they could see the face.
For what it’s worth, I was always on the honor roll, and was never identified as needing any type of special education. I don’t have problems with other kinds of analog dials (pressure gauges, for instance), I don’t have problems understanding clockwise vs counterclockwise rotation, and I don’t have spatial issues. I just struggle with clock faces. At least I can read and write cursive, so I guess that’s something.
It makes old people feel less old if people keep using antiquated technology. It’s why I still send telegrams.
Yeah I think there’s a lot of sentimental emotions that go into it.
I’ve seen video after video of Boomers and GenXer’s complaing: ”OMG! The kids can’t read a clock! We are doomed!”
I feel like it’s over the top and ridiculous.
Not in my daughter’s high school. Only digital “LED” ones.
There are analog clocks all over our office. Since we came back from COVID four years ago, one after another they are running out of battery and not getting them replaced. No one could be arsed. We get the time on our laptops and phones.
I do have three analog clocks on my walls at home. They have the approximate correct time and I do change them when DST comes in and out. But I never use them for actually telling time. They are purely decorative as far as we are concerned. The one in the dining room matches the window hardware in that room. The one in the kitchen has a culinary background. The one in the sunroom has a nautical one, as does the furniture.
Lololol IIRC this was the topic of my very first (and a bit brash and assholish tbh) post on these boards! 
Agreed. Analog clocks are a great introduction to fractions as well, specifically halves, quarters, and twelfths; certain geometry concepts like right angles (3 o’clock and 9 o’clock) and similarity.
At my university, official test time is still kept with analog clocks.
~Max
Let’s talk ADHD. A lot of people with this condition (including a lot of youngsters) have an issue known as time blindness. It means two things - they are bad at estimating how long something is going to take, and they are unaware of the passage of time. A large number of ADHD individuals report that analog clocks help them with time blindness. When time becomes visual, it can be processed in chunks, and it can be more easily monitored. Analog clocks, are of course, full of time chunks. You got your chunks of 5, 10, 15, 30, 45 and 60 right there.
I live by the Time Timer (I’m using one right now) which is a countdown timer in the shape of a clock with a colored pie slice that gets thinner and thinner as time wears down. We have one in every room of the house. My husband recommends them to his clients with ADHD: “This could do nothing for you, or it could completely change your life. Try it.”
I’m one of the life-changed people.
My son who also has ADHD measures time in multiple ways, including analog clocks, the Time Timer, and sand timers of various increments. The idea is that he needs to actually see the passage of time. He reads analogs like a champ. It took him approximately five minutes to learn.
My vote is teach analog clocks, both because it has been demonstrated upthread to improve visual spatial relations (we’ve got research on our side) and because there are a lot of ADHD kids out there, many of them who are not diagnosed, and it would be trivially easy to give them this tool that could really help them understand time.
(Also, Chronos? Username is on point today.)