Digital watches/clocks

[HudsonHawk]

Just a random thought, but am I the only one who can't tell time in digital form? I mean, I can read the time, it just means nothing to me. I have to translate it in my head to a clock face. So when I see "8:50", I have to think "let's see...that means the little hand is on the..." I don't own a digital timekeeping device, and even have the clock on my computer set to a 12-hr clock face.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Just a random thought, but am I the only one who can't tell time in digital form? I mean, I can read the time, it just means nothing to me. I have to translate it in my head to a clock face. So when I see "8:50", I have to think "let's see...that means the little hand is on the..." I don't own a digital timekeeping device, and even have the clock on my computer set to a 12-hr clock face.

I don't have a digital clock in my house, and even though there's a clock on the computer, when I want to know what time it is I look at the Big Ben alarm clock on my desk. I tell time visually, by the angle of the hands, and when I see a digital display I have to pause for a moment and translate it.

There is also a vast generational gulf between people who say it's 8:46 and people say it's about quarter of nine. I find the latter group is almost always punctual and the former group has little sense of punctuality at all. Make of that what you will.

 

[HudsonHawk]

... I tell time visually, by the angle of the hands, and when I see a digital display I have to pause for a moment and translate it.

There is also a vast generational gulf between people who say it's 8:46 and people say it's about quarter of nine. I find the latter group is almost always punctual and the former group has little sense of punctuality at all. Make of that what you will.

I guess this is it for me too. Someone can tell me it's 9:17, but I still have to translate that in my head. I'm wondering though if that's just a generational thing or if there's some left brain/right brain thing at work as well.

I remember once taking a physics class, and it was basically a room full of engineering majors and me, the geology major. But the professor gave us this little brain test, something like "picture in your mind a square, now make that square a cube, now color it red, now outline it in gold...who can picture it?" About half the class said they could, about half said they couldn't. The professor said "those of you who can't see it will never be engineers." I have no idea if he was on to something or just full of hippie crap.

At any rate, I work with many people, even my own age or older will only use a digital clock. It just struck me this morning over my coffee and breakfast taco.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

I'm equally happy reading both, and I don't think I "translate". Certainly not consciously. Probably a combination of my generation (Late X, Early Y) where we had a solid 50/50 combination of analogue and digital clocks/watches, and a watchmaker for a father.

Most of the younger people I know have trouble with watches with hands.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I love the aesthetic of the analog clock face but I always give the time as "8:45."
And I'm actually quite punctual

 

[Matt Crunk]

Time is the same to me regardless if the clock is analog or digital. Of course I prefer the charm of analog clock faces. I've never owned a digital watch and doubt I ever will. But when I read the time, I see it as the hour and minute whether I'm looking at a digital clock or analog. 4:45 is "four-forty-five" to me, not "a quarter till five" (or "of five"). To me saying "quarter till, quarter after, or half-past" takes more time and effort to think about and state, than does the actual hour and minute.

 

[EliasRDA]

I'm also of the mixed gen set, 1966, so that makes me uhh part boomer part gen x if I remember my gen sets right. So I can do the clock face or digi either way rather easily. I dont think I consciously have to picture a clock face, but that subconscious can do a lot & your not aware of it. 8)

As for saying time, I dont even think about it, I'll say either quarter of 8 or 745. And I'm one whos habitually early than early, I think that a military thing for me. If I'm supposed to be somewhere at 9 I'll be waiting at 830 or 845, drives the doctors offices crazy thats for sure. I think a lot has to do with I live on back roads that can see DelDOT working on them with no warning, causing delays. Or farm equipment riding down them causing backups. And dont even get me started on the 3 main north-south roads that clog up with tourons about now & dont leave until late oct/early nov. A 5 min trip down Rt 1 near Rehoboth can turn into a hr wait because we cant handle the gridlock.

Now mind you, I grew up in CT, I live on Long Island NY where the LIE can turn into a giant parking lot with weekenders headed for the east end on friday nite in the summer, so I can understand gridlock. But here they cant & in some areas there are no side roads around it, unless your car can float, heh.
But ehh, thats something else.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

And causes huge issues when talking to some Europeans. What's the time? Half eight. Of course in Germany, or so I'm told, that would mean half past seven. In Britain it would be half past eight.

I grew up where almost every time was "the back of [specific time]" i.e. at some time around. My mother liked to be vague!

To me saying "quarter till, quarter after, or half-past" takes more time and effort to think about and state, than does the actual hour and minute.

 

[Fastuni]

Half eight. Of course in Germany, or so I'm told, that would mean half past seven.

Exactly. "Halb Acht" means 19:30.
I have no problems with any way of reading (and telling) time and use a more vague or more precise form depending on context.

 

[F. J.]

If it ain't got a face and hands, a clock it ain't.

I don't have a digital clock in my house, and even though there's a clock on the computer, when I want to know what time it is I look at the Big Ben alarm clock on my desk. I tell time visually, by the angle of the hands, and when I see a digital display I have to pause for a moment and translate it.

There is also a vast generational gulf between people who say it's 8:46 and people say it's about quarter of nine. I find the latter group is almost always punctual and the former group has little sense of punctuality at all. Make of that what you will.

That's about how I am, down to the Big Ben on my desk. I imagine yours is older than mine, as mine is only from March of '69.
I think it is much easier to visualize, say, half an hour from a proper clock than it is from some digital time-keeping contraption. There's just no perspective from numbers on a display like there is from a real clock.
:clock:

Also, I'm a younger fellow myself, but I generally refer to the time by relativities. I'll even say "It's about five-and-twenty till." If that don't make me old-fashioned, I don't know what will.

Now, I was once told about a group of young folks being told to meet at a quarter after one and they all got there at 1325. I suppose the mentality was "If a 'quarter' is twenty-five cents, then a 'quarter after' must be too."shakeshead

 

[ChiTownScion]

There is also a vast generational gulf between people who say it's 8:46 and people say it's about quarter of nine. I find the latter group is almost always punctual and the former group has little sense of punctuality at all. Make of that what you will.

One of my criminal investigators told me this story from his childhood:

Both his father and his grandfather were life long employees of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad ("The Milwaukee Road," for which even he worked on for a few years, thus becoming a 3rd generation company man).

One day, when he was about 7, his dad took him on a train trip. As they were sitting in the observation parlor car of the westbound Hiawatha in Chicago Union Station, his father pulled out his 21 jewel Hamilton railroad watch and said, "Watch the second hand."

The very instant that the second hand commenced the new minute, the train began moving out of the station. His father admonished him, "This is why being on time is crucial."

My investigator never forgot that lesson.

In the days before standardized radio communication on the railroads, every operating employee's watch had to be regularly inspected by a division time keeper. Railroad watches were checked and rechecked before each trip by crewmen, because an error of even a split second could result in tragedy. Punctuality was not only a virtue: it was critical.

 

[Edward]

I'm equally happy reading both, and I don't think I "translate". Certainly not consciously. Probably a combination of my generation (Late X, Early Y) where we had a solid 50/50 combination of analogue and digital clocks/watches, and a watchmaker for a father.

I'm solidly Generation X, and I'm the same. We were taught how to tell the time "properly" at home and in school. All the "new" stuff - new TV, Microwaves, cookers... had digital clocks, and they were very cool. Our first watches were all digital. I went back to analogue by preference when I was thirteen. As much as anything, exams prompted it: it felt much more instinctive to think about how much of my two or three hours I had left or had for each essay based on the segments of the clock face. Nowadays it's as much an aesthetic preference as anything, but the spatial thinking thing is still something I use. I noticed recently I had to time something in the oven for twenty minutes, and realised I was actually watch the position of the hand in terms of how far it had to travel rather than measuring time per se. Not unlike watching a download bar on a computer screen (and so, full circle...).

I don't translate either, though; I can tell the time right off equally comfortable with analogue, digital, 12 hour or 24 hour. I'm tempted by one of those Russian military watches with the 24 hour dial, but I think that might be pushing it!! Used to have an alarm clock with the numbers reversed and an anti-clockwise movement. Kept perfect time, but you did have to think about it...

Most of the younger people I know have trouble with watches with hands.

My brother is just two and a half years younger than me; a surprsingly higher number of kids in hisyear group struggled with analogue clocks much more so than was the case with my contemporaries. I remember the 70s very clearly, though - he doesn't. His earliest memories are digital clocks and push-button phones; he doesn't seem to have any genuine recollection of anything before 1980, whereas I have a number of very clear memories from mid 76. Makes a big difference. I'm sure these days, when so many kids have dispensed with a watch in favour of just using their field telephone (the new pcoket watch?? In a sense...), digital will be far more familiar with them.

I'm reminded of a guy I know - Boomer generation (though that's a term I've only ever heard used in the US - he's Scottish, as in born and raised and still there, not as in "Grandma ate some haggis once"). Didn't wear a watch for years, but had an incredible sense of time. Became a party trick - folks would ask him the time, and he'd rarely be more than five minutes out. Then he got a mobile, became dependent on that and lost the knack...

I'm also of the mixed gen set, 1966, so that makes me uhh part boomer part gen x if I remember my gen sets right.

Generation X. Gen X is 63-77, I believe (well, according to Douglas Coupland, and he wrote the book... ). Specifically, thoseof us born between the Kennedy Assassination in november 63 and the release of Star Wars in May 77.

And causes huge issues when talking to some Europeans. What's the time? Half eight. Of course in Germany, or so I'm told, that would mean half past seven. In Britain it would be half past eight.

I first encountered this with Norwegian students - common across Scandinavia, apparently.

 

[sheeplady]

I find analog clocks easier to plan my day. When I look at a clock with a face (analog) I can see, for instance, that it is almost five hours until 3pm, or there is 45 minutes left. I can do it with a digital clock, and it has become more automatic to immediately know how much time is left in an hour, how much time until 3pm, etc. but it is not as easy.

I strongly prefer analog clocks over digital.

I tell time as minutes to and minutes past. "Ten to one" or "Quarter past." I do notice I have a tendency also to say "It's a little before noon" even if it is 15 minutes away. I'm pretty punctual though- I grew up in a home where my parents were *never* on time for anything. My husband tends to lollygag and I absolutely hate that. The one thing I have found extremely helpful is that when we had our daughter, I now do the "We have to leave in 10 minutes," "You have five minutes to play," "We need to get in the car now" helps my husband to manage his time better. Turns out he thought for a couple months I was doing it for his benefit, not our daughter's.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

One of the most annoying things was listening to the radio and they would sometimes give the time as "thirty-five minutes past the hour." What hour?????

 

[this one guy]

That bugs me too, especially if I'm absorbed in doing something and counting on the radio to give me the time. Some radio stations don't even give the news on the hour, so you can blow right past that if you don't have a clock (watch, cellphone, etc.) to keep an eye on.

 

[LizzieMaine]

One of the most annoying things was listening to the radio and they would sometimes give the time as "thirty-five minutes past the hour." What hour?????

When you hear that it's a dead giveaway you're listening to either a satellite feed or a "voice tracked" station, and not a live announcer.

Bring back "9 pm B-U-L-O-V-A Bulova Watch Time."

 

[HudsonHawk]

Now, I was once told about a group of young folks being told to meet at a quarter after one and they all got there at 1325. I suppose the mentality was "If a 'quarter' is twenty-five cents, then a 'quarter after' must be too."shakeshead

This reminds me of the discussion we had about "new math" and systems that are not in base 10. People's brains are conditioned that half of something is 0.5. It's not always, and time is the most common example. I think the digital clock readout makes it easier to forget that.

 

[EliasRDA]

Generation X. Gen X is 63-77, I believe (well, according to Douglas Coupland, and he wrote the book... ). Specifically, thoseof us born between the Kennedy Assassination in november 63 and the release of Star Wars in May 77.

I first encountered this with Norwegian students - common across Scandinavia, apparently.

It varies, my SRES desiginator (SRES=Seniors Real Estate Specialist) said at one time 63, another 65, sometimes even as late as 68. Even wikipedia cant decide as they say from the early 60's to the early 80's for gen X.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generations#List_of_generations

Here in DE, most RE agents say 60's for cusp between Boomers & Gen X. My brother was born in 63 & considers himself Boomer. I really dont even care about what Gen I am, some days I feel Boomer, some X'er, heh.

I do remember my first watch I was given was a analog face, same as my alarm clock. I was in my teens in the late late 70's before I got a Casio (I think) watch which was digital, then my alarm clock in the late 80s was digital. The one when I was stationed in germany was digital as thats all the px there had.
The last 15 or so years I havent worn a watch, but last year I got tired of always pulling out my cell to see the time so I got a nice cheap pocket watch, along with a dress analog watch, then about a month ago picked up a dual watch, has both analog & digital on it. Got that for when I travel between time zones. I do have an antique pocket watch, no idea how old it is, but eventually I'll have to go to the watch repair shop up in Milton to have it fixed before the guy retires.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think Kennedy babies are a generation all our own, neither boomer nor Xer. If the moon landing was the first world event you vividly remember, you belong to this cohort.

My first watch was a Timex Girl Scout watch which I got for Christmas in 1971. I wore it all thru high school, except for the winter it spent frozen in a snowbank in our dooryard. When it thawed out in the springtime, I wound it up and it still ran. John Cameron Swayze was right.

 

[ingineer]

I also have problems with digital clocks and watches, I always consult the US tank clock on the wall instead of the computer.
I am wearing my Government issue Marathon analogue today, but really like these WWII frogman watches. Big dial and hands. My first build is front and center.
Does the Raketa confuse you?

Richard