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this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2025
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That might be a good thing for all the gen alphas who can't read a clock. There are a lot of them.
Plenty of people older than Gen Alpha very much prefer digital clocks too. I can read analog clocks but it takes me several seconds to convert it to digital time (which is how my brain thinks). As far as I'm concerned, analog clocks are a relic of the past and it's a good thing to abolish as many of them as possible.
but is it good that we think differently than prior generations thanks to the advent of the affordable digital clock in the 1970s? i think we lose something in that conversion that we might not be fully appraised of until the last analog clock is gone. a policy of elimination seems concerning to me because it presumes that a single perception is the superior perception rather than a different perception
What does that even mean...? If you know of something specific that is superior about analog compared to digital clocks, I'd like to hear it.
The main positives of an analog clock revolve around how it visualizes time time relative to other parts of the day.
When the hour hand is on 9, you can see at a glance it is two hours from 11 and three hours from 12 without needing to do the calculation in your head. When the hour hand is in the upper right, you know is it shortly after noon or midnight depending on how bright it is outside. When looking at the minute hand, if you see something started at 2:10 you don't need to remember the exact time, just where the minute hand was when you started and estimating being half or a third done until 3:10 is pretty easy. 15 minutes is easy to figure out because it is a quarter of the circle.
It conveys this at a glance without needing to focus so much on the exact hour or minute. Visualizing our time results in thinking about how we are using our time.
Like anything else, that doesn't make it superior in every situation and they suffered from constantly being out of sync with each other by a few minutes or seconds.
Let's set up a quick 2hr stand up zoom meeting with the department heads and their staff to SWOT this out. How's Dec 24th about 3pm work for everyone?
I don't think most people need to do a mental calculation to know that 9 am is 3 hours from 12. That's just a fact that's easy to remember since you're exposed to it so often.
And when the digital clock says "1" or "2" you know it's either afternoon or the middle of the night. Even better, if you're using 24 hour time you know precisely if it's afternoon or early in the morning even if you're in an underground bunker.
Yes... you can just remember the "minutes" part of the time on a digital clock was too.
15 minutes is easy to figure out on a digital clock too because it's ultra simple math to just add or subtract 15 from a number below 60.
I'm imaging you dismissing the idea of a pie chart because obviously 8 is twice as large as 4 and knowing 8 is 2/3 of 12 is just a fact people know because they are exposed to it so often.
You should know that pie charts are widely seen as being very ineffective ways of communicating data.
All of the examples of bad pie charts are completely different than a pie chart viewed straight on with only two values. You know, the thing pie charts are perfect for.
With only 2 values? Why would you want that? And what makes you believe they're as good as a bar chart for that?
why would you use a bar chart to display a proportion?
Because it's easier for humans to read?
i'm not convinced that's true though. bar graphs are best for visualizing a simplification of an aggregate set and comparing it against a related aggregate set. that doesn't sound like a good way to visualize a proportion. much better to display a whole broken down into the componets of that whole.
Ok, well the people I linked to have done actual usability studies to back up their claims. But, you have a feeling?
i read them and am not refuting them. the conversation is about bad and good situations for pie charts. we're talking about a scenario in which what is being compared is two proportions. a scenario in which the articles you linked said a pie chart is a reasonable visualization
Reasonable, but not as good as a simple bar chart.
They tell you which way is clockwise.
i don't think one or the other is strictly superior. there's been a lot of scientific research (paywalled, thanks, academia, or i'd link it) about how this changes our perceptions of time. there is yet to be any study into how this change in perception changes anything or everything else. that is what i am worried about. jettisoning something potentially useful and turning it into a lost technology, on purpose, before we even know what the consequeces are
link to a summary popular science article to get anyone interested started
I've never liked them. It's a design that's like "give me a rough approximation of the time" vs. a digital clock that gives you the precise time. And, if all you want is a rough approximation of the time, a digital clock is still probably better because you just read the first few digits.