Do young people today have difficulty telling the time on analogue clocks?

[Draconis]

I've heard this from a couple of people now and wondered how much truth there is in it

In primary 4 my teacher realised we couldn’t read an analogue clock and then spent a full week teaching us.

Yep my dd 18 can't use an analogue clock

My God this is depressing.

There's an entire generation of people leaving school without knowing even the most basic general knowledge, and now we find out they can't even tell the fucking time?!

The National Curriculum has a hell of a lot to answer for.

Every classroom in ds's school has an analogue clock in it. Ds 15 reckons you'd have to be pretty stupid if you couldn't tell the time on an analogue clock...

Fucking hell. How have we got to this stage, where kids are getting more stupid and losing skills?!

We don't have a single clock in the house and haven't for years. Got rid of the last one when I realised the battery had run out months previously and I hadn't noticed! We look at our phones, or on the TV. Or most often, ask Alexa.

I'm currently teaching my 6 yr old, but she doesn't have the maths skills yet to do the 5 minute increments. She understands quarter and half though. To and past is a bit ropey still. She doesn't get how many minutes are in a quarter / half.

We have a digital 24hr clock in the car that she tries to read, but struggles as it's subtracting from 12 to get the hour which she can't do quickly in her head yet.

I remember finding it really really hard. I was in KS2 and had a colour coded watch for to and past as I just couldn't grasp it at all. I got there in the end.

I do remember my granny bemoaning us kids not telling the time properly as I said it was twenty five past / to something. She's always said 'five and twenty past/to' so I guess things change and maybe in 10 years we'll all be saying 45 past 6. Or 45 past 18 maybe?!

They can't wind a cassette tape or use a rotary phone either!

Fucking hell. How have we got to this stage, where kids are getting more stupid and losing skills?!

No, we are just retaining skills that are useful, rather than skills that are no longer needed.

100 years ago, I reckon most people could set a fire in a grate. Probably not many can now.
100 years ago, people knew how to waltz. Not so many can now.
50 years ago people could remember telephone numbers - indeed, could use dial telephones, and use phone boxes. I think many would be mystified now.
50 years ago most women could knit, and do dressmaking. Fewer do now.

Obviously there are loads of other things.

Life evolves.

I work in a secondary school, and yes, it's true - a lot of them can't tell the time using an analogue clock.

It's not that they're stupid, or that they haven't been taught. Being digital natives, most of them are very clever indeed at doing anything online or with a smartphone - often without being taught. I think it's just lack of practice. Almost all of them use fitbits, smart watches or their phones to tell the time, and of course these usually display the time in digital format. I always think it's a bit like my generation's bemusement at pre-decimalisation currency. My mum still occasionally talks about ha'pennies or shillings and I never really know what she means.

Analogue will be obsolete in a few more years, just as most kids probably wouldn't know how to load an old fashioned 35mm film camera, so most kids won't need an obsolete 'skill'.
Most teens are far better at technology than their parents, because they've grown up with it, if they weren't better at tech. Schools wouldn't need to offer advice to parents for keeping their kids safe on line.
Different periods in time require different skills. Society changes, as it changes are skill sets change. Apart from in exam halls, and hospitals how often do you see analogue clocks now? All our local train stations are digital, buses have digital time on the stops etc etc

Our not are obviously I have no skill set!

I taught my DS how to tell the time when little but now struggles at 16 with if I say its quarter past or quarter to the hour ie. Get moving. He will say what's quarter to so have to say 4.45 etc. Think just knows the time off his phone.

My daughter is 16 and extremely bright but can not grasp the analogue clock !!

I remember being told by a teacher how much they hated teaching the time as it didn’t relate to anything much else we learn. I was given a tour of a private secondary school by a young teen who could not read the analogue clock. It did put me off the school a bit as my then 10 year old could easily read the time. I also remember that at that time - 2016 - people were claiming that ‘no one wears watches anymore’. That doesn’t seem to have actually happened

8 year old ds has an analogue watch. He can tell the time absolutely fine. The only clocks in our house are analogue and I've taught him the 24 hour clock as that's generally what I use out of habit. 5 year old dd is getting the hang of it too.

Kids aren't all 'getting more stupid', the skills that they need are changing. A child can type or dictate now, so handwriting is less important but they can use PEEL to write a clearer academic paragraph than people twice their age. I haven't needed to write for my job in over ten years, so all that anguish my English teacher had for my future with my handwriting was in vain.

They are surrounded by digital clocks and generally have a phone or watch with digital display so my dc can tell the time and are always punctual, which ultimately is the important lesson of telling the time.

My dc have learning difficulties, forty years ago they would have struggled to succeed academically, now with appropriate support - laptops, rest breaks etc. they are thriving and heading for university. Yes they might have taken much longer to learn to read an analogue clock and know left and right (they can now in their teens) but they have a strong work ethic, are empathetic, have great communication skills and don't rush to judge others. Skills which will serve them well, even if some people do judge them as 'stupid'.

Can you send and receive a message in semaphore or Morse code? Do you know the different applications of a clove hitch and a sheet bend and how to tie them both? Could you mend a transistor radio? Do you know how to set in a sleeve, smock a bodice, or use a darning loom?

And if the answer to any of these questions is no, does that mean that you are stupid?

Because the skill isn’t being used frequently anymore.
Most kids don’t wear analogue watches. They look at their phones for the time.
clock towers? Why would anyone be looking at that for the actual time? No need.
All stations here have had digital clocks hanging down since the 90’s
No clocks on the wall here except the digital one on the microwave.
Just not a skill that people are going to need going forward in the decades.

Yep, tried so hard with both. ASD 18 yr old we’ve given up, she works by her phone or other digital means, and says the ‘40 past’ thing. 17 yr old ? ASD, slightly better but requires effort.

There are far more references to 24 hr/digital clock than analogue - maybe it’s us out of step, not them?

The skills you mention do not have the universality of being able to read an analogue clock, so aren't a valid comparison.

I think the use of stupid is a real error in thinking.

I think your average person in the mid-20th century would each be able to do at least two things from that list competently, and they are all skills which have largely become obsolete or very niche within one or two generations.

Not just teens 😂

My watch’s primary function is not as a device for telling the time. That’s what the phone is for.

Well, it's clear where he got his judgemental shittiness from.

Just imagining Big Ben one day, with a digital clock face🤔

My kids definitely knew how to tell the time when they were at primary school, so I was surprised to find out my 14 year old now struggles with an analogue clock, particularly ones with Roman numerals or no proper numbers. An otherwise bright kid who’s doing really well, but cannot quickly or confidently tell the feckin time. We’re practicing.

Analogue clocks are less relevant now.
But it’s not necessarily ‘young people today’

I’ll be 55 shortly and I remember being unable to read an analogue clock in the middle of primary school in the 70s. I was sent out of the room by the teacher to find out the time from the library clock - and couldn’t read it
I had recently come back to the UK from Germany, hadn’t been taught it there nor by my parents and we had digital clocks (presumably clock faces as well, but I didn’t need to read them) - I was subsequently given a crash course in reading the clock face

Today it’s a less relevant ‘skill’. Like can openers. A few years ago a video was made about a teenager who was ‘too stupid’ to use a can opener - an irrelevant skill that the people making the video hadn’t taught the teenager - this isn’t that video ….