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Even if you're right that analog watches are better tools that's not what Adams was saying. "We all know, really, that [analog clock face] is a lot more instant

Even if you're right that analog watches are better tools that's not what Adams was saying. "We all know, really, that [analog clock face] is a lot more instantly meaningful to us than 15:39" which is just wrong. Plenty of people, myself included, get more instant meaning from a digital readout.

js2 4y ago
Funny you should use 15:39 as your example. I find the translation I have to do from 15:39 to 3:39 pm to have much more friction than reading a digital or analog clock in the first place, both of which I can do with equal ease. The problem of course is that I'm not used to 24-hour times, so I don't equate 15 with any particular time of day. Similar to how I have to translate C to F to make sense of C temperatures. Now, a 24-hour analog clock with an embedded digital temperature read-out in C, that would really hurt. Apparently 24-hour analog clocks are thing: https://www.amazon.com/Navaris-Hour-Wall-Clock-Non-Ticking/dp/B09F2YJXDQ/ https://www.amazon.com/Navaris-Hour-Wall-Clock-Non-Ticking/d... Ouch.
- pikminguy 4y ago
  I didn't pick 15:39 that's the quote from Douglas Adams. He pretty clearly went with a hard to read digital time to emphasize the point that he (and according to him everyone else) can more readily get useful information from an analog readout. My own watch is a digital 12 hour display and that is more useful to me.
  - Lio 4y ago
    At the time of writing 24 hour digital clocks were very common in UK train stations. All rail services in the UK are always in 24 hour form. So there’s a good chance he just picked 15:39 as a familiar train time.
- joemi 4y ago
  Counter example: I grew up using 12-hour time and still do to this day, with plenty of analog clocks all around, and yet I find it much easier and faster to convert between 24-hour and 12-hour time (just remove the leading 1 and subtract 2, if the hour is more than 12) than to parse an analog clock (identify which hand is which, convert the minutes to get an approximation, even more work if it's a stylized clock that might use roman numerals or not have any labels at all).
- parenthesis 4y ago
  In the context of hours of time, I perceive `15' as just an alternative symbol for `3pm'. Likewise, I perceive 1539 as an alternative symbol for 1536, as I like to keep my clocks three minutes fast.
Ajedi32 4y ago
I don't think there's anything more inherently meaningful about a digital vs analog readout, or vice-versa. They're both highly abstract representations of time, it really just depends on what you're used to. That said, every single event on my calendar, and every single communication about time I have with other people is expressed as a written (or spoken) number, not as a position on a clock face. That makes digital clocks far more useful for me personally; it saves me the extra step of having to mentally convert to digital time before being able to reason about how the time on my watch relates to other events or significant times throughout my day. To those who prefer analogue watches I have to ask; how does that process work for you? Do you find it easier to mentally convert written times to a visualization of a position on a watch, and then do whatever mental reasoning you need to do in that space? Or are you doing the same thing I would be doing if I had an analog watch; converting it to digital and then reasoning from there? If the latter, why does skipping that extra conversion step by using a digital watch feel worse from your perspective?
- bananabiscuit 4y ago
  Digital easier to read, but I personally think analog is easier to “feel”. I get a much more visceral sense of urgency when the minute hand approaches an anticipated position. And same goes for when the hour hand crawls downward to signal the end of the work day. Seeing it physically close the distance to the 6 o’clock position gives me a much better feel for how much of the day I have left than “3:24”. It really is like a pie chart in that sense. At this point in my life I am definitely much more used to reading a digital clock so I don’t think you can attribute this to familiarity.
- rlpb 4y ago
  Communications with others are expressed as a written or spoken number. But then calculations with that number (eg. "how long do I have?") have to be done with arithmetic. It's fairly rare that I wear a watch, but when I do, such as at a conference or similar, I prefer an analogue face. In this kind of case I prefer to visualise the time on the clock face. Then I can "see" the time remaining without doing arithmetic. > If the latter, why does skipping that extra conversion step by using a digital watch feel worse from your perspective? I'm quite capable of doing it either way, but my preference is to do the single required conversion to "analogue" so that repeated comparisons are visual and do not require repeated arithmetic. I also find it easier to remember a time visually, whereas single-digit errors in remembering a digital time can result in a greater error.
npteljes 4y ago
Yeah, this instant meaning is something that's learned. I derive an instant meaning of the analogue clockface, and also from the digital.
pessimizer 4y ago
> Plenty of people, myself included, get more instant meaning from a digital readout. More from outside knowledge than from the digital readout itself. There's no way to tell from a digital readout there are 60 minutes in an hour or seconds in a minute, or that there's a 12-hour period that means something (and no hints to guess.) There's no evidence that the time represented on a digital readout changes at a constant rate or is sequential and doesn't jump around or go faster sometimes and slower others. Everything on an analog clockface is just there. If you found an alien digital clock written in alien language, it would take you forever to figure out anything about it; it would take a while to figure out anything useful even if you knew it was a clock. If you found an alien analog clock, it would be immediately obvious what it was and what it was doing, and you could use it to help you understand the alien digital clock. edit: also, when your alien digital watch did the equivalent of jumping from 12 to 1, it would throw everything off, especially if there were a different symbol for 1 second or 1 minute that there was for 1 hour. An analog clock visually explains the transition between 12 and 1. I think all this stuff is obvious, I'm confused about the argument being made that it's not. There's just less information on a digital readout. I feel like I'm trying to explain that movies have more information than movie scripts, but Kolmogorov would say to compress them both and compare the filesizes.
- pikminguy 4y ago
  I don't think you're getting how important the word instant is in this context. An analog clock might be better for decoding an unfamiliar time system. It might be better for teaching children how we count time. It might implicitly contain more information. It might be better in a thousand ways. None of that matters. For whatever reason I get a faster and more accurate sense of what time it is from a digital watch. I am not alone in this. Therefor the assertion that an analog readout is more instantly meaningful for everyone is wrong.
  - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
    My experience is different. When I am at the train station I can have an immediate idea of what time is it just looking at the analog clocks around (they are digital displays mimicking analog clocks) even if I can't read the numbers from afar. Digital clocks are harder for me because I have to parse the information: is that a 6, 8, 9, or zero? It doesn't make much difference in the end, bit having to actually read the number forces me to be precise and I can't rely on intuition. The more I age, the more my vision deteriorate, the more I find analog clocks easier to read.
Beldin 4y ago
Having witnessed kids learning time: they will happily give "15:39" as an answer. But if you ask them when it'll be 4 o'clock, they literally have no idea - not even of yhe direction (forward or back). I think this is Adams' point: digital watches pretend to give you information but only give you data. That's a reason to consider them silly: they make you work (translating their data to something with meaning) while pretending to do the work for you. Note: analogue watches also require interpretation. But they support coarse- as well as fine-grained interpretation: is it before or after a whole hour? Closer to half than to whole? Or to a quarter? 10 past or to? Etc.
- HKH2 4y ago
  That's not a fair comparison because you're comparing 24 hour time with 12 hour time. Granted, a digital clock won't tell you there are 60 minutes in an hour, but teaching analog time involves much more than that. For starters, you have to explain that for minutes, the numbers are in increments of 5.
  - fijiaarone 4y ago
    What you need to do is take the numbers off the clock and start with only one hand. Then ask them if there is more or less time (since midnight) until lunch.
    - HKH2 4y ago
      Okay. How many other things do you have to break down though?
fsckboy 4y ago
c'mon, not believable. his statement about digital time display is correct, and it strikes me that you are pretending it's not. "it's 10 till", or "5 minutes before the hour" are statements that capture the human concept of time much better than 15:52
- lolinder 4y ago
  They may capture your concept of time, but I agree with the parent. I always have to translate "5 minutes before the hour" to "3:55" in my head before I really understand what was said.
  - fijiaarone 4y ago
    In this age of digital displays, what people don’t realize is that 3:55 is “just a little bit” before the hour — which is immediately obvious on a circular display.

js2 4y ago

Funny you should use 15:39 as your example. I find the translation I have to do from 15:39 to 3:39 pm to have much more friction than reading a digital or analog clock in the first place, both of which I can do with equal ease. The problem of course is that I'm not used to 24-hour times, so I don't equate 15 with any particular time of day. Similar to how I have to translate C to F to make sense of C temperatures. Now, a 24-hour analog clock with an embedded digital temperature read-out in C, that would really hurt. Apparently 24-hour analog clocks are thing: https://www.amazon.com/Navaris-Hour-Wall-Clock-Non-Ticking/dp/B09F2YJXDQ/ https://www.amazon.com/Navaris-Hour-Wall-Clock-Non-Ticking/d... Ouch.

pikminguy 4y ago
I didn't pick 15:39 that's the quote from Douglas Adams. He pretty clearly went with a hard to read digital time to emphasize the point that he (and according to him everyone else) can more readily get useful information from an analog readout. My own watch is a digital 12 hour display and that is more useful to me.
- Lio 4y ago
  At the time of writing 24 hour digital clocks were very common in UK train stations. All rail services in the UK are always in 24 hour form. So there’s a good chance he just picked 15:39 as a familiar train time.
joemi 4y ago
Counter example: I grew up using 12-hour time and still do to this day, with plenty of analog clocks all around, and yet I find it much easier and faster to convert between 24-hour and 12-hour time (just remove the leading 1 and subtract 2, if the hour is more than 12) than to parse an analog clock (identify which hand is which, convert the minutes to get an approximation, even more work if it's a stylized clock that might use roman numerals or not have any labels at all).
parenthesis 4y ago
In the context of hours of time, I perceive `15' as just an alternative symbol for `3pm'. Likewise, I perceive 1539 as an alternative symbol for 1536, as I like to keep my clocks three minutes fast.

Ajedi32 4y ago

I don't think there's anything more inherently meaningful about a digital vs analog readout, or vice-versa. They're both highly abstract representations of time, it really just depends on what you're used to. That said, every single event on my calendar, and every single communication about time I have with other people is expressed as a written (or spoken) number, not as a position on a clock face. That makes digital clocks far more useful for me personally; it saves me the extra step of having to mentally convert to digital time before being able to reason about how the time on my watch relates to other events or significant times throughout my day. To those who prefer analogue watches I have to ask; how does that process work for you? Do you find it easier to mentally convert written times to a visualization of a position on a watch, and then do whatever mental reasoning you need to do in that space? Or are you doing the same thing I would be doing if I had an analog watch; converting it to digital and then reasoning from there? If the latter, why does skipping that extra conversion step by using a digital watch feel worse from your perspective?

bananabiscuit 4y ago
Digital easier to read, but I personally think analog is easier to “feel”. I get a much more visceral sense of urgency when the minute hand approaches an anticipated position. And same goes for when the hour hand crawls downward to signal the end of the work day. Seeing it physically close the distance to the 6 o’clock position gives me a much better feel for how much of the day I have left than “3:24”. It really is like a pie chart in that sense. At this point in my life I am definitely much more used to reading a digital clock so I don’t think you can attribute this to familiarity.
rlpb 4y ago
Communications with others are expressed as a written or spoken number. But then calculations with that number (eg. "how long do I have?") have to be done with arithmetic. It's fairly rare that I wear a watch, but when I do, such as at a conference or similar, I prefer an analogue face. In this kind of case I prefer to visualise the time on the clock face. Then I can "see" the time remaining without doing arithmetic. > If the latter, why does skipping that extra conversion step by using a digital watch feel worse from your perspective? I'm quite capable of doing it either way, but my preference is to do the single required conversion to "analogue" so that repeated comparisons are visual and do not require repeated arithmetic. I also find it easier to remember a time visually, whereas single-digit errors in remembering a digital time can result in a greater error.

npteljes 4y ago

Yeah, this instant meaning is something that's learned. I derive an instant meaning of the analogue clockface, and also from the digital.

pessimizer 4y ago

> Plenty of people, myself included, get more instant meaning from a digital readout. More from outside knowledge than from the digital readout itself. There's no way to tell from a digital readout there are 60 minutes in an hour or seconds in a minute, or that there's a 12-hour period that means something (and no hints to guess.) There's no evidence that the time represented on a digital readout changes at a constant rate or is sequential and doesn't jump around or go faster sometimes and slower others. Everything on an analog clockface is just there. If you found an alien digital clock written in alien language, it would take you forever to figure out anything about it; it would take a while to figure out anything useful even if you knew it was a clock. If you found an alien analog clock, it would be immediately obvious what it was and what it was doing, and you could use it to help you understand the alien digital clock. edit: also, when your alien digital watch did the equivalent of jumping from 12 to 1, it would throw everything off, especially if there were a different symbol for 1 second or 1 minute that there was for 1 hour. An analog clock visually explains the transition between 12 and 1. I think all this stuff is obvious, I'm confused about the argument being made that it's not. There's just less information on a digital readout. I feel like I'm trying to explain that movies have more information than movie scripts, but Kolmogorov would say to compress them both and compare the filesizes.

pikminguy 4y ago
I don't think you're getting how important the word instant is in this context. An analog clock might be better for decoding an unfamiliar time system. It might be better for teaching children how we count time. It might implicitly contain more information. It might be better in a thousand ways. None of that matters. For whatever reason I get a faster and more accurate sense of what time it is from a digital watch. I am not alone in this. Therefor the assertion that an analog readout is more instantly meaningful for everyone is wrong.
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago
  My experience is different. When I am at the train station I can have an immediate idea of what time is it just looking at the analog clocks around (they are digital displays mimicking analog clocks) even if I can't read the numbers from afar. Digital clocks are harder for me because I have to parse the information: is that a 6, 8, 9, or zero? It doesn't make much difference in the end, bit having to actually read the number forces me to be precise and I can't rely on intuition. The more I age, the more my vision deteriorate, the more I find analog clocks easier to read.

Beldin 4y ago

Having witnessed kids learning time: they will happily give "15:39" as an answer. But if you ask them when it'll be 4 o'clock, they literally have no idea - not even of yhe direction (forward or back). I think this is Adams' point: digital watches pretend to give you information but only give you data. That's a reason to consider them silly: they make you work (translating their data to something with meaning) while pretending to do the work for you. Note: analogue watches also require interpretation. But they support coarse- as well as fine-grained interpretation: is it before or after a whole hour? Closer to half than to whole? Or to a quarter? 10 past or to? Etc.

HKH2 4y ago
That's not a fair comparison because you're comparing 24 hour time with 12 hour time. Granted, a digital clock won't tell you there are 60 minutes in an hour, but teaching analog time involves much more than that. For starters, you have to explain that for minutes, the numbers are in increments of 5.
- fijiaarone 4y ago
  What you need to do is take the numbers off the clock and start with only one hand. Then ask them if there is more or less time (since midnight) until lunch.
  - HKH2 4y ago
    Okay. How many other things do you have to break down though?

fsckboy 4y ago

c'mon, not believable. his statement about digital time display is correct, and it strikes me that you are pretending it's not. "it's 10 till", or "5 minutes before the hour" are statements that capture the human concept of time much better than 15:52

lolinder 4y ago
They may capture your concept of time, but I agree with the parent. I always have to translate "5 minutes before the hour" to "3:55" in my head before I really understand what was said.
- fijiaarone 4y ago
  In this age of digital displays, what people don’t realize is that 3:55 is “just a little bit” before the hour — which is immediately obvious on a circular display.