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-12 points

That is a good point, but analog clocks are IMHO in the realm of sundial clocks or audio casettes or floppy discs. Technology that was once usefull, but now it’s replaced by better alternatives. Time is after all just a number, and it does not matter how we choose to represent it.

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45 points

Digital isn’t better it’s just different. Also a tonne of wristwatches are still analogue.

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15 points
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It absolutely is tho. Usually more precise, 1:1 translatable into written text, can use the superior 24h system and uses the same reading system that is already taught in school anyways.

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8 points

“Ususally more precise” > This depends on how precisely it is set, not on the display. Unless it’s a connected watch, but then it’s much more expensive and less energy efficient.

“1.1 translatable into written text” > Both are, you’re reading the same number

“Uses the superior 24h system” > Adding 12 to a number isn’t complicated. And with habit, most people who use analog watches and the 24h system know which position of the needle means what number in 24h format without doing the math. Some clocks don’t even have digits. Unless you’ve been sedated and woke up in a room without windows, you’ll know which side of 12 you’re on. And otherwise, you’ve got more pressing issues.

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5 points

Right! Just to prove a point, I am going to make an NTP enabled rolex, and sync it to my microsecond accurate local NTP server! :P

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3 points

There’s nothing stopping an analog clock face from representing 24h time:

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1 point
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7 points

I wear a watch for the time. I like it more than using my phone.

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2 points

I used to have one, but now I set my phone clock to be displayed as an analogue clock so that kind of made it obsolete, since it now has all the benefits of an analogue display with the additional advantage of automatically syncing time and adjusting for time zones and daylight saving time.

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1 point
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Depends for me. In my casual day to day I don’t but when I had a lot of appointments to meet I find it quicker to check the time on my wrist than bu fumbling for my smartphone in my pocket, something that is probably even more true for women if they store their phone in a small bag due to lack of pockets.

Also, sometimes I like leaving my phone at home because I have unfortunately developed the tendency to give it a short glance whenever I have downtime. If I still need to know the time I can still wear a wristwatch.

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-7 points

Wristwatches are just jewelry at this point tbh. They’ve been rendered completely redundant by cell phones. The only people under 60 who wear them are doing so as a fashion statement.

I’m sure a lot of wristwatch stans will downvote me but I don’t care I’m still right

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15 points

Ever since college I’ve always worn a cheap watch on my wrist least for the same reason my grandpa stopped keeping a pocket watch: its more convenient to check on your wrist for the time than your pocket.

Granted we’re getting way off topic here since except for a few years its ways been a digital watch. Asserting analog watches are more numerous in models when digital watches are more numerous in sales, therefore reading an analog clock is a useful skill is odd to me. When I was wearing an analog watch for my allergies it was a flieger because the mental tax of making the hands turn into a singular time was a frustration.

I learned, though, from this that how you present time changes how you perceive time. Kids who grow up with digital representations of time consider “the current moment” in a much narrower and instantaneous scope than people who grew up thinking of time as being a spectrum on a dial

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6 points

Watches are just more convenient. You don’t need to carry a phone everywhere and with texts and calls showing on the watch you don’t need to find your phone to check.

I use my watch with alarms/ timers to know when I need to clock out or in from lunch etc while I mostly leave my phone at my desk while at work so if I’m walking around the building I still get my alerts through my watch

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3 points

For office attire or going out, sure.

If you’re doing repair work, running lines, etc, a watch is the choice. Your hands are busy, so a watch is what you need (Except for specific trades where you don’t want to risk it getting caught in machinery).

I can say with 100% certainty that I know large swaths of folks in their 20’s and 30’s who regularly wear watches. Some smart, some digital, some analog.

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3 points

Wristwatches don’t have the negative psychologically addictive and anxiety-producing effects of smartphones

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1 point

I’m a watch nerd with a collection of mechanical watches and I’m not going to downvote you because you’re right. I wear them because I like them even though I know they are anachronistic. I can’t remember the last time I interacted with somebody significantly younger than me who was wearing a watch, and as I said, I’m a watch nerd, someone’s watch is one of the first things I notice about them.

I will say that they are occasionally more convenient than other places I could check the time but I’ve built my life in such a way that I very rarely have to care about what time it is and I go weeks at a time without checking the time, just wearing them because I’m fascinated by tiny gears and springs doing their business and I like the feeling of it on my wrist.

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1 point

I use my wristwatch all the time to take dogs’ pulses.

Having a cell phone next to a grumpy dog is asking for a broken cell phone. I’m sure people in other fields need wristwatches as well.

Just because you don’t use them don’t mean they’re not useful.

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18 points

Knowing a clock is more than just telling time.

When you’re walking with your homies you gotta be able to call out “gyat 3 o’clock” , so your fellow bros know where to look.

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3 points
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Ok you know what. I was ready to conclude that learning to read analog clocks isn’t that useful but you’ve actually convinced me otherwise.

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16 points

As someone who struggled with analog clocks into my twenties, being able to see the hands move gives me a better sense of time passing and I remember reading stuff that supported that. I have a better sense how much time I have left for something looking at analog vs digital basically and it’s a fairly common experience apparently

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16 points
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Absolutely not comparable to floppy disks. The hands are a representation, not a technology. Technology-wise, most modern “analog” wristwatches are quartz, and therefore digital, not actually analog. Yet we choose to make them with hands because that provides a better representation of the passing of time.

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3 points
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4 points

The reason is better is because a number on its own doesn’t provide any representation whatsoever of the passing of time. It represents the current observed time, but it does nothing to represent graphically how much of the day is left.

The arguably best representation of the passing of time is a 24h analogue watch/clock, even if that has its own set of issues which make it a terrible way of displaying the current time.

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2 points

Technology-wise, most modern “analog” wristwatches are quartz, and therefore digital, not actually analog.

Wat… that’s not how that works. Quartz watches can be digital or analog but what matters is whether it has a digital display or analog hands.

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9 points

Are they going anywhere, tho? They start cheap and are very energy-efficient, so I think they’d stay. If there is a probability to face them IRL it won’t be bad to learn how to read them.

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3 points

I need reading glass (sigh I got old) With an analogue watch face I can work out the time, blurred lines can be seen. Cant read blurred numbers.

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3 points

It’s not better, it’s just different, your comparison is flawed.
Personally, I prefer analog watches for most cases, because it’s much easier for me to do calculations visually. To add 6 to 7/19 on a digital clock I need to turn on my math brain (19+6=25, 25>24 => 25-24=1), but on an analog watch I can just visually read the number opposite of 7.

And that’s just one example, there are other cases, besides just being easier to read at a glance. I’ve used both digital and analog watches since birth, but analog watches are marginally better for daily use, where to the second precision isn’t necessary.

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1 point

Time isn’t just a number though. Especially not when it comes to clocks. And it’s also bound to Mass.

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4 points

It’s just a number equally as much as it’s just the angle of the two sticks in a circle. Analogue clocks don’t give a special insight into the nature of time

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-2 points

100% it is antiquated technology.

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