this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2024
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I often look at it as when kids were unlikely to encounter any analogue things regularly. Did you have analogue clocks and phones for any period? The only problem with my definition is schools kept analogue clocks around for long after you would not see them anywhere else.
I can see what you mean for phones, but are analogue clocks supposed to be a thing of the past now? I have like 3 in my home and know many other people, including young people, who still have them.
I have only seen them with a bit of a retro thing with watches or digital emulations of them for easily over a decade and the only reason I saw any in early 2000 is because I worked at a school.
Really? Where are you located? I walk past three clocks on the way from my office to the metro station alone.
chicago. I mean there are some old buildings where they exist but not on my commute. I would be bowled over if any el stations had them.
I like that expression, I'm going to steal that.
These train displays haven't changed in probably 30 years here. Vienna also has a bunch ofthese public clocks on big intersections and squares.
I wonder if it's an America vs Europe thing? I'm in the UK and analogue clocks are still very common here as well. So maybe it's just America that don't use them much anymore.
I think that's the case. Like they're not unheard of here in the US. Like I could go out to the store right now and buy one. Wal-Mart or Target or a home goods store still sell htem. A lot of schools and colleges still have them in classrooms. But at home or in the office, I suspect they're more decorative than anything. Like all clocks in my place are digital. The only analog clock I have would be a watch in some box that I have that I never wear. I think my parents have one, like a small mantlepiece one. Otherwise, everything else is digital.
Analog watches are probably the most common encounter. But with so many, including me, using smartwatches, how common are they actually?
That's really interesting! It's definitely one of those differences between America and Europe that isn't really noticed. For me, seeing a digital clock would definitely get the "oooh, that's fancy" response. Like there are places that have a clock in the corner of a digital display for something else (eg, the displays at the train station listing the next train have a clock in the corner too), but when it's just there purely to tell the time, it's almost always an analogue one. I can't even remember the last time I saw a digital one!
I'm surprised at that, from my experience I think it's still more normal than not to have analogue clocks at home, and I would always prefer an analogue watch.