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As someone who is in a relevant field (higher ed), the teachers are doing what they can.

This past year I've had college students ask about the time during an exam because they can't read the analog clock projected on the wall. If you can make it to 20 years old without realizing you're missing a critical skill and learning it yourself, that's also on you.

We're also seeing a lack of critical thinking skills and ability to retain information. People don't remember things that were taught 1-2 semesters ago. Not that they need "a refresher", but completely forget core concepts (such as forgetting what CPU caches are in an advanced architecture course). Then there's tons of people who can recite every definition on an exam, but not take a step further to come to a conclusion on a problem. (Git revert reverts checked files, so if I run the command after committing a test file the file is gone and no test is executed).

There is something wrong with students today. And I'm saying that as someone who just finished my undergrad during COVID. But the institutions are adapting by teaching things with less depth, which then dumbs down further education because they now have to re-cover everything from scratch...

do we need a video essay to know that a clock display that is basically just progress bars is a good way to tell progress in that progress bar?

"These newfangled analog clocks with hands are killing the ability of people to understand clock bells. Kids these days."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Striking_clock

A striking clock is a clock that sounds the hours audibly on a bell, gong, or other audible device. In 12-hour striking, used most commonly in striking clocks today, the clock strikes once at 1:00 am, twice at 2:00 am, continuing in this way up to twelve times at 12:00 mid-day, then starts again, striking once at 1:00 pm, twice at 2:00 pm, and the pattern continues up to twelve times at 12:00 midnight.

The striking feature of clocks was originally more important than their clock faces; the earliest clocks struck the hours, but had no dials to enable the time to be read.[1] The development of mechanical clocks in 12th century Europe was motivated by the need to ring bells upon the canonical hours to call the community to prayer. The earliest known mechanical clocks were large striking clocks installed in towers in monasteries or public squares, so that their bells could be heard far away.

Now you know how a clay tablet scribe felt when that new-fangled papyrus showed up in the high-schools.

I can only imagine how people treat subjects like informed voting.

No need to imagine, look at the people elected to run the United States.

That's how people treat subjects like informed voting.

Exactly. I’m wondering how many of those teachers could use a slide rule or even an abacus. We’re far enough along now that I bet the majority of teachers would also be lost when confronted with a log table or a topo map and a compass.

Astrolabe and sextant? They’d be totally lost.

I bet most teachers don’t know how to saddle a horse, card and spin wool and flax by hand, or even use a clutch on a manual transmission vehicle, either.

[edit] Ooh… thought of another one! I bet none of the children know how to use a rotary phone either. (In fact, since POTS has been fully DTMF for over 20 years, I doubt a dial phone would actually function today without a converter).

I was frustrated that I couldn’t quickly and accurately read the time - Ie: it’s 1:23 rn, if I was looking at an analog clock, depending on the activity, I’d round either up or down. I found the minutes too small to read, and 90% of the time rounding was good enough.

It literally is a harder format. One is literally just numbers and another is a chart. Anyone can read text but everyone needs to learn how to read a chart at least once.

You make it sound like you’re old 😂

I'm 59 and all the teenagers I knew could read clocks (both kinds) just fine, so I have no idea what you're talking about.

They actually gave us a number but gave it to us on a abacus and now we can't comprehend it.

I think the people saying they’re not being used anymore just aren’t noticing them

Probably too busy getting shrimp neck and not looking up, LOL.