Article: Youngsters don't know how to tell the time on a traditional clock face
Interesting article in today's Times:
Link for thoe with an account: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/7...6-10ccf4ec8de6
Here's the piece:
Dilemma for clock face as smartphone generation loses ability to tell the time
Time is ticking for the traditional clock face as the smartphone generation loses the ability to tell the time.
More than a fifth of 18 to 24-year-olds struggle to understand a conventional clock with hands and only half of this age group, known as Generation Z, say that they never struggle to tell the time.
Millennials, who reached adulthood in the early part of this century, do little better: nearly one in five 25 to 34-year-olds admits that they also have difficulty with the big and little hands.
By contrast, only 4 per cent of over-55s say they have such a problem.
The YouGov survey of more than 2,000 people suggests that an increasing proportion of those in every passing generation struggle to read analogue clock faces, raising the prospect that the ability will eventually disappear, perhaps maintained only by a small number of enthusiasts.
By the time the present generation of 18 to 24-year-olds retires, the majority of young people will not be able to tell the time on clocks easily, the trend suggests.
The research is potentially damaging news for traditional watchmakers as their market shrinks with every year. In Switzerland, the watch industry accounts for 1.5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) and employs tens of thousands of people.
Experts blame the decline on the ubiquity of smartphones and smartwatches, which have increasingly become consumers’ digital pocket watches. The first iPhone was launched 12 years ago, meaning that Generation Z grew up with these devices and millennials were exposed to them in their formative teenage and early adult years.
The Marloe Watch Company, the British wristwatch designer that commissioned the research, said that digital devices had become the “primary” way for younger people to tell the time, with wristwatches becoming a “personal preference rather than a necessity”.
Oliver Goffe, co-founder of the company, said: “Generation Zers are our future prime ministers, teachers and doctors. The fact that they might not be able to tell the time if they can’t find a phone charger could be an issue.”
Sundials were the first time-measuring devices known to man. They are generally thought to have been invented in ancient Babylon. Greek, Roman and, latterly, Chinese engineers then developed water clocks. It was not until the turn of the 14th century in Europe that mechanical clocks were introduced, with the invention of the verge escapement.
Hands move clockwise in imitation of the sundial because they were invented in the northern hemisphere.
Clocks are believed to have been introduced to England from the Low Countries and the English word clock derives from the Middle Dutch klocke, which itself comes from the medieval Latin word for bell, clogga.
Early clocks had only an hour hand, which often looked like a hand. Minute hands were introduced in the late 17th century after the invention of the pendulum and anchor escapement, allowing precision. In 1793 the French tried to introduce decimal time with 100 minutes to the hour and ten hours in a day.
