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

While internally I find this a little worrying, it's probably no different to my grandparents generation been shocked mine can't read cursive. Or their grandparents been shocked at their inability to horseride or cook on an open fire. Different times call for different skills.

It's not just children. Lucy Worsley's Puzzling quiz always has a couple of clock-based rounds and they stump everyone. Older contestants as well as young ones.

'What Oscar-winning film is at 10 to 4?' Contestant stares for 30 seconds at clock face with the letters DHI at the 4 position and GAN at 10, before giving up. 'What's the time in the mirror?' Contestant mutters fruitlessly to themselves until the buzzer goes.

Baffling. Lots of them are older than I am, and although I'm not quite old enough to have been on the Ark I do remember Callaghan leaving no. 10.

When was the last time anyone looked at an anologue clock? There is one in my town square but that's the only one I can think of

I honestly can't think when the last time I needed to look at, or was even around an analogue clock. Years, possibly even decades. For better or worse it is, as another poster said, an obsolete technology.

Teaching kids to read an anologue clock now is really not a necessary life skill any more. It's interesting, sure, but it's closer to learning Latin than it is to learning how to swim or how to use a knife and fork.

I've been hearing this about analogue clocks for decades!

Every day. I don't own a digital clock or watch and never have. The shops where I live are full of them - jewellers, gift shops, etc.

Yes definitely one of my children cannot tell the time, unless digital

I'm so confused that people are saying they don't use analogue clocks, so much that I just googled to checking I def know what they are because who doesn't have them on their walls. What the hell is on your walls then (that but is tongue in cheek, I don't need an answer 😂). I just assumed we all had clocks on our walls. I've got so many and I'm not old or old fashioned (I don't think)

Mine cannot read one except the DC that is obsessed with 1940s life and taught herself as an adult.

They didn’t have analogue clocks on the walls from nursery onwards. Instead they had a smart screen projected onto a wall that they’d walk up to and sign themselves in for the morning register by touching their name and dragging to a packed lunch or school dinner box. This screen had a digital clock on it.

They’ve only seen analogue clocks in museums.

On a plus side, they can read 24hr time as well as 12hr time and are quite good at instantly calculating time zones of major cities which many adults struggled with when I was a career girl.

It drives me crazy. It's because of their mobiles. I'll say twenty to seven and they ask me to tell them properly ie 6.40. Age 11 and 13.

and it's nothing to do with parents not caring. I tried from age 6 onwards and they could do it when they were 7/8/9 but since mobiles they have forgotten.

Yes, ds2 struggles, even though we went over it a lot, and have an analogue clock in our lounge.

How can anyone not read a clock, it takes 2 minutes to learn it.

If you can count in fives you can read a clock. First half goes up in 5’s, second half of the clock goes down in 5’s. Change the word 15 to quarter. Change the word 30 to half.

It must be they’re not taught, because it’s easy to learn. I’ve seen very young kids have what I consider very hard homework for their ages yet they cope fine with it, so it has to be that analogue isn’t taught then? Wonder why that is?

Doesn't the tick tick tick drive you crazy? There is something about the regularity that makes it hard to ignore, whereas bird song doesn't bother me as much. Hate being in a quiet room trying to sleep and the clock is ticking, amplifies the stress of insomnia. I sometimes find it hard to sleep so go down and sleep on sofa so I don't wake dh, before anyone suggests just having them downstairs.

@Unexpecteddrivinginstructor ahhh actually I use a white noise app so I guess I haven't noticed. But yes I imagine it would do

I'm really shocked that parents aren't teaching this to be honest, I suppose it's one of those things that they just expect to outsource to school teachers.

DD aged 6 has a clock on her wall, it's one of those teaching the time ones so the quarter to/past/half past/5s/10s/20s and 25s are written on it as well as the usual numbers. It cost about £8 from Amazon. I really don't think there's an excuse for parents not to be teaching this.

I don't have a single analogue clock in my house. Not even a watch I only see them on clock towers. I'm in my 50s but it's becoming obsolete it's a skill they don't now need realistically.

I was head of a school. We were informed by the exam board we were not allowed to use digital clocks. That was 10 years ago. That's probably changed now

I sympathise with the sleeping, I have a very quiet (if not really as quiet as advertised) bedside clock for that reason. I can hear the clocks (two) in my lounge, but they don't bother me.

Dd13 would 40 past 9. I correct her every single time l, it drives me mad 😅- she's dyslexic but not sure that's to blame. She does understand both 9.40 and twenty to 10 if said to her but would always say it this way if asked to tell the time. Would be able to do so on analogue but would take some time. In my house mostly they don't read the time at all, they ask Alexa who of course says it in the right format so not sure why its not sunk in

I did exam invigilation this year and it was quite common that students struggle with analogue clocks. They are taught at a young age but like everything if you don't use them, you struggle. Most clocks they access will be digital.
Some rooms in the school had digital clocks but others analogue. I could tell some students struggled looking at the analogue clocks as it's not a quick glance like a digital clock and they were sitting working out the time.

Possibly more so nowadays with the easy availability of digital watches and phones, but when I started teaching Maths thirty years ago there were children who couldn’t use analogue clocks to tell the time. More recently, teaching in FE, I encountered quite a few adults who had never been able to use analogue clocks. It’s now one of my five informal indicators for potential dyslexia, which impacts Maths progress and achievement far more than people realise (and is often wrongly diagnosed as dyscalculia in individuals who are actually normally numerate).

They are taught, but as with any knowledge if they don’t regularly retrieve it by using a clock every day they will forget. Even if they are surrounded by analogue clock faces there will almost always be a digital clock available in some form.

How can anyone not read a clock, it takes 2 minutes to learn it.

It’s baffling if you confuse left/right, clockwise/anti-clockwise. Some people’s brains just won’t allow them to do it easily.
(As an aside, I notice that the presenters on the Radio 4 Today programme regularly misread the time, and have speculated that their studio clock is analogue and perhaps missing some numbers. Or that they’re all dyslexic to some degree.)

I don't have anything on my wall apart from pictures. Why would I need a clock on my wall? I wear a watch, there is one on my phone, there is one on my laptop, hell there is even one on my microwave. All digital thlugh.