If you ask me anything about the time, I immediately picture an analogue clock face. Even looking at digital time, I equate it to a clock face simultaneously. It’s just how I think of time.
I also imagine a wall calendar when picturing a year progressing.
As a former Air Traffic Controller, we couldn’t function as well without referencing analog clocks. You cannot use a digital clock reference to advise the pilot of one aircraft that another one was approaching so we transmit something like, “Traffic at 2 o’clock. 5 miles.” We’d have to use something like, “Traffic at your 040 position. 5 miles.” Might work but could be more confusing.
And the “second hand” is actually the third hand!
I’ve been wondering for a while if people will eventually turn to some alternative to the “o’clock” system for describing relative orientation, as analog clocks fall further and further out of people’s experience. Or if it will survive indefinitely as a cultural fossil, with people of the future being asked trivia questions like “what did something being at 2 o’clock’ originally refer to?”.
Much like “dialing a phone”, I suspect the term will outlast the device for a century or two. But I’ve certainly wondered the same thing as you’ve asked.
Which brings up an interesting side question:
For those of you young enough to have never used a round-dial telephone, or those who have frequent exposure to the current under-20 crowd, what term do they use for initiating a phone call where they need to input the number, not just tap an existing contact or on-screen link?
"I need to call… "
Usually said with a great deal of displeasure, as they prefer text and bring about to get stuff done on a web page. And why would they be typing in numbers? You can tap the number on-screen and your phone knows what to do with it.
Once in awhile you get the number from some offline source and need to tap the digits yourself. What do they call that part of the process of initiating a phone call?
Besides “eye-rollingly primitive”? 
I can’t remember the last time i did that. I don’t need a word for it.
Seriously, in what context would you do that? If it was any entity i might need to call more than once, I’d type the numbers into my contacts app, not into my phone app.
But I’ll ask if you like.
I’m often reading a number on the screen of my tablet/PC and wanting to call it on my phone. So I peck the numbers into the phone’s phone app the tap the [initiate call] button.
If I’m going to use the number later, then after the call I save that on the phone as a contact, filling in name, etc., on some mix of the phone or the tablet/PC once they sync across.
Similarly when I see a phone number on a sign IRL or on the side of a truck. Or I meet somebody and we’re wanting to exchange numbers. One of needs to keystroke the other’s number into some app. Often the phone app is the easiest of the choices.
Why not just look up the number on you phone if you plan to use it on your phone?
I hand them my phone with the contact app open, and ask them to enter their data. Then i text them, “this is Puzzlegal”, so they can pop my info into their contact app.
I’ve never called a number i got from a sign. Who are you calling? The slimy lawyers who advertise on billboards?
Actually, sometimes i look up a number on my phone and then want to actually place the call with my landline. So i need to peck in the digits. But my younger friends don’t have landlines.
I still use an old landline phone and have to punch in the number every time. If it even has a memory function I don’t know how to use it.
Which by the way I always used to hear it described; “punch in the number”.
Yeah, manually “dialing” makes sense in the context of a land line.
The other thing i wanted to mention is that in addition to limited-access apps like FaceTime and zoom, totally free apps like signal and discord support voice calls, and are agnostic as to hardware. (You can use your phone, or your desktop, or most anything else with a Wi-Fi connection.) When i “call” my son these days, it’s usually on discord, not on a “phone”.
I do as much as possible on a big screen w real keyboard. Usually these sorts of calls are a serendipity. I wasn’t intending to phone until I found their website or email or whatever didn’t answer a question I need answered.
I’m sorta the same. More often txt than phone. Somebody keystokes a number into somebody’s txt app and hits send. Now we both have record of both numbers and can store them wherever later.
That might be because of your age. You are probably a little far sighted and didn’t grow up fluent on a phone’s keyboard.
Also, it seems to me you would have to mod your 1930s Bakelite dial phone a bit to make it work with anything other than an land line…
I’ve used a rotary phone and I don’t think my thirty-something kids have ever seen one but I don’t think any of us have ever used the phrase “dialing a phone” or anything similar. I’ve never needed to refer to the act of inputting the number separately from making a call. The closest would be referring to a “dial tone” at a time when even the landlines were push-button. Which reminds me - even as rotary phones became obsolete, it was ( and is) still called a "dial tone ".
It’s easy to tell if the short hand is pointing, say, between ‘2’ and ‘3’. So it’s fine for the hours. It’s not easy to tell which of the four marks between ‘2’ and ‘3’ the short hand is pointing at; the long hand, with its tip closer to the marks, is much better for the minutes.
You are confused because the word ‘second’ has two different meanings
I’m not young, but some of my classmates were. They just “put in” their number or otherwise “add” it. Usually they hand you the phone and have you type it in.
For your other use case of looking something up on a computer and then adding that to your phone… well, first of all, I think computers are generally much less popular now than in our era. Everyone has a phone but not everyone has (or knows or cares to use) a computer to look things up.
In the event that they do use a computer, you can usually just click the telephone number and it’ll call that number right on your phone. (If your browser and phone are both Google or Apple, and you’re signed in to both, tel:// links and things that look like phone numbers can be automatically forwarded to a phone on the same account).
The whole “look it up on your computer and manually type it into your phone” thing is probably an old people thing.
I resemble that remark!
Android phone w all Google apps vs. all Windows / MS ecosystem on PC.
File, mail, & contact sync, but not much else.