How are you with reading clocks?

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20 Feb 2009, 5:23 pm

I have a little trouble with analog clocks, in that it takes me a second or two to read it. Kind of embarrassing when someone notices me studying it, though.

mikebw
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20 Feb 2009, 5:23 pm

After learning to read analog I've had no trouble. But I prefer digital.

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Keeno
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20 Feb 2009, 5:27 pm

RarePegs wrote:

WurdBendur wrote:

Twelve-hour analog clocks are poorly conceived anyway. I'd prefer decimal time.

In the early 1970s, not long after decimal currency was introduced in the UK, there was a feature on a tv news programme in Northern Ireland about how time was going to be decimalised next. A jeweller was brought into the news studio to demonstrate his range of analogue decimal clocks. It wasn't until many years later that I found out that this had been shown as an April Fool story!

In the French Revolution, the French Republican Calendar did exactly this. The metric system started in France at this time. But they also tried to decimalise time.

The calendar was different, for example it had new names and time spans for months. But a day consisted of ten hours, an hour of 100 minutes, and a minute of 100 seconds.

This metric time didn't catch on like the rest of the metric system did.

Ana54
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20 Feb 2009, 5:52 pm

I'm just as good as anyone else right now at reading old-fashioned clocks, but a few years ago I wasn't and preferred the digital kind. I wasn't good at it before because I had trouble telling if the clocks were accurate and how off they were if they were off.

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20 Feb 2009, 6:07 pm

Keeno wrote:

I'm excellent with reading clocks. Digital or analogue, 12 hour or 24 hour.

I do have trouble with digital clocks though, that show just numbers on an LSD display, rather than hands on a dial. Particularly alarm clocks - typically they'll have red numbers on a display. Nothing to do with reading the time. I just get a little shock or jolt when the minute changes. You never know quite when it will and I actually find the sudden change difficult and it gives me a little shock.

was that meant to say LCD display? KoR thinks would be bad if they did put LSD in them.

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Am unable to understand clocks,time or numbers,but have got MLD [multiple learning disability] so reckon it's part of that.
am glad in a way am not able to understand time or clocks because it would be one more thing to add to the list to have meltdowns over for having to have everything done at a certain time,currently am have to relie on staff to know when the time is to do things as well as knowing day means light and night means dark.

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20 Feb 2009, 6:45 pm

miku wrote:

I can read clocks, but it takes a moment. I can't just look and know semi-instantly, in the same way I can look at a word, or a digital clock display, and instantly know.

I have to think "ok, where's the short hand, ok it looks like 4 is just behind it, that means it's 4 something, ok the long hand is pointed at 4 times 5 it's 4:20"
and yes, like you said, if a stranger holds out his watch for me.. there's no way. i just pretend to look and then thank them. i mean, i do actually look, sometimes it's an easy time like noon and i actually do get to know right away.

This is quite similar to my experience (although I always locate and figure out the big hand before the little hand).

At one point, I was the only child in my class at school who could read the time from an analogue clock face, but I do not seem to be any faster now than I was then.

Spokane_Girl

20 Feb 2009, 6:50 pm

I'm very good with reading clocks.

mitharatowen
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20 Feb 2009, 6:51 pm

Ligea_Seroua wrote:

(and isn't horrible that all the ticking is out of synch, it bothers me when I'm trying to get to sleep)

Oh no! That IS horrible! That would drive me INSANE! I only have one clock that ticks audibly. Two others are LCD's and the fourth just has a little second hand so it doesn't make much noise.

btw lmao at LSD clocks :lmao:

Keeno
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20 Feb 2009, 7:31 pm

Freudian slip.

ARandomPerson
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20 Feb 2009, 7:33 pm

lovecholie wrote:

I might just be an idiot but I always trouble with the little hand. When I ask for the time and people show me their watch, I often smile and nod, "Thank you!" And walk away, never knowing the correct time. It takes me a little while, so I don't want to stand there staring at it while they wait. I also hate expressions like, "It's fifteen after/til". That damn unreliable little hour hand.

Also, I have a tendency to literally feel time passing me by. I have to think out my schedule and, that, takes time.

only if there is no numbers on the face just tick marks, and then i have a one in two guess of the time. (could be upside down.

Neurocog1
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20 Feb 2009, 7:56 pm

I think I was about 11 or 12, maybe older, before I could make any sense of an analog watch/clock. Hasn't been a problem for a long time, have one on my wrist now...

ruveyn
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20 Feb 2009, 8:15 pm

Digital or analog?

ruveyn

pandd
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20 Feb 2009, 9:09 pm

ARandomPerson wrote:

only if there is no numbers on the face just tick marks, and then i have a one in two guess of the time. (could be upside down.

I hate clock faces like that. I have to use my fingers to count if it's a small clock and the ticks are close together.

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20 Feb 2009, 10:33 pm

If I look at an analog clock, I know what time it is and how much time I've got before whatever event at a certain time that I'm waiting for. BUT if you ask me what time it is, I may be unable to get the words. Usually I can do it fine, instantly, 'cause I've worked at it. It took me many years as a child, though.

If you ask me what time it is and I'm looking at a digital clock, I'll read it right out, but I have to take an extra few seconds to make the connection between that number and how soon something is going to happen.

I prefer an analog, I am less likely to be late, even if I am more likely to be embarrassed by seeming to be unable to read my own watch.

I love mechanical clocks and watches. I have some pretty ones. I wish to create a collection with an example of every type of clock escapement, just the mainsprings or weights, drive trains, escapements and pendulums without the rest of the clock, so I could hang them all on one wall and sit and watch them.

Who_Am_I
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20 Feb 2009, 11:19 pm

I'm fine with clocks now.
I couldn't read analogue clocks until I was 9; partly because I couldn't tell my left from my right, and a lot of clocks that I saw didn't have numbers on them, just lines where the numbers would be.

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sue88
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23 Feb 2009, 10:08 am

It took me longer than normal to be able to read a clock. I was nervous when I was little that someone would ask me "what time is it?" I was afraid of looking dumb of course.

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