Teenagers not being able to tell the time from analogue clocks is CRAZY (saying this as a teenager myself)
Are we being serious right now bro?! 🤦
What kind of boomer would believe this nonsense?
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/schools-removing-analog-clocks/
I don’t really get it. Snopes says “mostly false”, but then confirms that the UK made a recommendation to replace analog clock for digital ones because “some students had trouble estimating the remaining time”.
While OOP is a shortcut/overgeneralization, it doesn’t sound “mostly false” to me.
Some ppl who just badly want to be angry.
Every year I taught for the past 30 years I have heard this but I will say that every year I had to go over how to read a clock at the beginning of the year and every time a kid would ask me what time it is I would point at the clock and ask them what time they think it is? At least they left the class knowing how to read a clock even though they were shit at writing essays.
They are too loud, I had to insist to put the clock down and take the batteries out, since the ticking was too loud.
This article is old enough to buy cigarettes now.
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.
Learning to read the clock was like… A couple of lessons and some homework in the 2nd grade, and everyone got it.
Yes, this meme is pretty obviously fake.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/schools-removing-analog-clocks/
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.
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.
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…)
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.
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.
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”.
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
Lemmites will never miss an opportunity to make things difficult to draw attention to themselves.
Yeah but the “hard” work of reading an analog clock apparently offends some people. Just more of “feelings” nonsense vs. facts
I feel like I’m going insane reading these comments about how difficult it is to read analog clocks,
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.
I do not
In this case I am afraid I doubt in my ability to explain anything to someone of your ability.
I can confirm. You are not insane.
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?
Because it’s not! Glad to help you clear that up.
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).
Lemmites love to make things more difficult than they need to be.
Bo
Being older (mid fifties) I was taught the analogue clock. My eyes no longer work so well for reading, and an analogue clock face allows you to see the hands and know the time without having to work out where I’ve left my glasses. On my phone’s sleep screen I’m using large high contrast digits so I guess I’m using both styles. Also much easier to visualise time deltas on a clock face.
Looks like .world is nothing but ableist assholes. From what I understand it’s a lot of reddit refugees, so that tracks.
To the title, that’s always been the case.
“no child left behind” turned into “make it easier until everyone passes” Shit isn’t new. it’s been going on for a long, long ass time.
Shit isn’t new and it hasn’t always been the case.
It’s fake.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/schools-removing-analog-clocks/
The less educated a populous is, the less likely they are to think critically, think for themselves, and ultimately the easier they are to control.
It’s getting really bad. Some people even use “populous” when they mean “populace.”
It’s getting so bad that some people even put the period INSIDE the quotation mark at the end of a sentence!
Do the blackboards in the US also say “breathe in, breathe out, repeat” so that half the class doesn’t just die?
No that’s silly, there’s no guarantee that they could read that.
I loved when a class would get quiet enough to hear the seconds hand click on the mechanical motor. I lived to see how close it was to the end of minute. One time in class I counted how black dots were on the ceiling. Wow I was bored
I counted the dots along the x axis, multiplied by the y axis count and took that as an estimate for the tile. Then did the same with the number of tiles across the ceiling. Then multiplied that by the number of classrooms… Same with the floor tiles. There was no end to it.
What was scribbled out of this screenshot with black lines, and why was it scribbled out?
Maybe it was the link to Snopes explaining how this is fake?
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/schools-removing-analog-clocks/
The part in the middle is a screenshot of some social media site and the blacked out parts are navigation bread crums, comment counts. The answer below has a blacked out user name, profile picture, etc.
I have no idea why they would remove UI elements from a screenshot.
It took me until age 15 to become comfortable reading analog clocks and confident knowing which way is left and right.
Hey cut me some slack, left/right gets confusing sometimes because of mirrors & facing people).
But I think learning how to tell time on an analog clock is an important skill because it broadens the mind regarding mechanics & mathematics, thereby developing more synapses in our brains & logic & mental computational skills.
I’m old af and I still have to think about it
Once I figured out what hand I write with, it was all easy street from there. I used to tell myself “I write with my right hand”
Analog clocks are just annoying, I support this change. Also let’s change format to 24hr format
Ironically, I want a 24h analogue clock
24h analog clocks exist but they are pretty useless because you lose angular resolution. So unless you are a vampire that’s up 24/7 a 12 hour wall clock has better angular resolution than a clock with 33% wasted area you’ll never use/see because you are asleep
what’s angular resolution now 😭😭😭💔💔
It’s about how far the hand moves in a given time. On a normal 12h circle analog clock the hand moves 30° per hour. On a 24h analog clock that’s halfed to 15° per hour.
AND PLEASE STOP CHANGING IT EVERY SIX MONTHS!!!
I’m all in on 24hr clocks. I’m a veteran and currently work in healthcare. Use that 24hr times 40+ hours/week.
But, I also like regular clocks. Especially BIG building clocks or old time 4 side post clocks you can still find on some corners of cities & towns around the globe.
Why/How are analog clocks annoying?
Digitals are way easier to read.
You can teach three year olds to read analog clocks (see my other post) but I’ve yet so see three year olds reading and understanding digital clocks. I get the feeling in this thread that everybody that has issues with analog clocks is from the US and that might come from the fact that the US (at least it seems based on this thread) has almost no exposure to analog clocks.
Reading analogue and digital clocks are kinda a different skill and use different parts of the brain. That’s not to say either is better, it’s just different.
I think removing everything that kids have a bit of a hard time trying to grasp just teaches kids to give up if anything isn’t immediately apparent. Its not as much of a waste of time as cursive, and it’s to be taught to think in another way.
I think that kids “learning how to learn” is really important, especially with how these AI models are stunting like a whole generation of people.
This is minor, but I also think less things need electronic displays/components that are hard to recycle and increase dependency on exploiting X country for Y resource. Its also cool to just be able to build a physical mechanism which digital clocks have no real feasible option to do
It’s extremely minor because it’s extremely fake.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/schools-removing-analog-clocks/
I just found out my 10yo has been lagging behind in spelling because he’s been using speech-to-text on his school issued iPad for class work. He doesn’t have to think about it or try sounding it out, so of course an unpracticed in-development skill is waning. It’s going to be an interesting parent-teacher meeting coming up.
Is it a feature you can disable on the iPad? I never considered that kids would be doing that. My spelling was never great but I just always chalked it up to the way my brain worked. Even when I spent a couple years in college spending most of my free time reading books both to myself and our loud to my partner I still didn’t remember how certain words were spelt because I often didn’t write them. If I never wrote them as you are saying I imagine it would have been much worse.
Cursive is wayyyy more accessible for lots of people with chronic pain in their arm/hand/wrist. Also helps prevent those conditions for those who have do a lot of hand writing. I dread the day that people will no longer be able to read the least painful way to write or me.
If I’m honest with myself my handwriting was always shit. If I was writing you a letter you’d be able to read it, but taking notes in college was all but useless for me. The speed at which you would have to write left me unable to find any of it legible so I was able to take in more information by just sitting down and listening/watching instead of scrambling to figure out what they were talking about now after I wrote down whatever I thought was important prior to that. Professors write fast because they do it all the time, and the amount of time it would take me to read then write what they wrote would overlap the time they spent over the next 15 seconds telling you why it was important. If I wrote down why it’s important I’m behind on the next bit of information and scrambling. When a professor posted their notes online so I could review it that way it was so much easier for me. (Makes note taking way easier)
What’s interesting about this is that we are not taught how to take notes. People used to have classes that taught what is actually a complicated skill. I have gone through enough schooling that my note taking just happens without much thought, but it took me real effort to get there.
and I yet I had a class in note taking and then years latter got points taken off because I didn’t take like that teacher wanted
Why the fuck would your notes be any of the teacher’s business?
I don’t know bit it really pissed me off
I had a couple teachers try to spend a single class about note taking but I think note taking is different for everyone, much like learning styles. Telling someone to skip a,b, and ,c and just write d because they view it as the important information only works for people who think exactly how they think. So I would try something like that and would end up with.
1974 - congress - didn’t pass till 1980.
That means nothing to someone unless they know more context, which the context clues in my experience are tied to someone’s individual thought processes. In this case it would be mentions of maybe reconciliation process, simple majority, and budget. But for others it could be other things.
Its also cool to just be able to build a physical mechanism which digital clocks have no real feasible option to do
i am delighted to be able to introduce you to flip clocks.
I would rather learn how to build an analog clock. In the olden days clock makers were highly respected & incredibly intelligent, it’s quite an intellectual & mechanical art & science & craft to build an analog clock.
We should make everyone mad. Don’t teach them to read analog clocks. Teach them to read digital clocks and sundials.
It is minor but part of a bigger problem. Show them a globe and ask them to point our where Austria is and then ask them where Australia is. Most couldn’t do it. And many wouldn’t even know the difference
Learning how to write with a pen is a waste of time…?
