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Comment by trescenzi | Hacker News Reader

Yep this is why I prefer analog watches. They are much faster to internalize the time but slower to convert to numbers. Because it’s an abstraction I innately know as someone who learned to read them as a child they are very familiar and easy to read. You really only need the actual numbers when someone asks you for the time.

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Technology Connections did a really great video on this a few years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeopkvAP-ag

Apparently being raised with analog clocks vs digital changes how one intuits the passage of time.

The classic example of this is when someone sees you check your watch, then they ask the time, and you have to check the watch again to see what time it actually is. A comment is almost always made about how the watch was just checked.

"Well, surely some time has passed since I read it last...you weren't asking me what time it was the last time I checked, were you?"

How about speed and speedometers in cars? For some reason I prefer digital readouts of speed while I prefer analog faces for watches/clocks.

Well, maybe because digital is better at showing small differences in this case? Like on a 50kmh road, dropping below 50 is quite noticeable in digital, less so with a line above or below another line.

But for the revs, I think it's quite clear that the analog is better.

Maybe one way to put it would be how important an exact value is? For the speed, it is. For revs, the relative value and its change is much more important and humans track movement much better.

It’s because speedometers aren’t showing a fraction of a whole. Analog clocks work by showing how far through the minute/hour/12 hour period you are. Speedometers are just sticks pointing at numbers. Analog speedometers do however do a better of representing your acceleration than digital ones because the speed of the dial does show acceleration.

> They are much faster to internalize the time but slower to convert to numbers.

People keep saying that, but even after trying all my life, I still can't read analog clocks without mentally "decoding" the exact time. And I'm usually good at quickly building visual intuitions!

Though I think I experience what you're describing, just with digital clocks. For those it feels like I'm not reading 4 separate digits, as if the general "shape" is enough.

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