Think twice about buying the children in your life a watch, because the upcoming generation can’t read analogue.
Busy parents everywhere have, understandably, left children to their own digital devices in the past decade, a move that has resulted in difficulty reading analogue time.
According to The Telegraph, students under the age of 18 are having so much difficulty understanding analogue clocks, that digital clocks are replacing analogue in exam rooms in the United Kingdom.
Deputy general secretary at the Association of School and College Leaders, Malcolm Trobe, explained to The Telegraph that the popularisation of digital devices is responsible for the shift.
“The current generation aren’t as good at reading the traditional clock face as older generations,” the former principal said.
“They are used to seeing a digital representation of time on their phone, on their computer. Nearly everything they’ve got is digital so youngsters are just exposed to time being given digitally everywhere,” he added.
The logic behind introducing digital clocks is that analogue clocks can add additional stress to exam environments.
Trobe further explained that there are huge advantages to using digital clocks in exam conditions, adding that there is less room for mistakes.
Various Twitter users reacted negatively to the news, claiming that schools need to be responsible for teaching kids how to read.
Others have compared the updating of technology to sundials, claiming analogue clocks are no longer necessary.
Where do you stand on the analogue debate? Tell us in the comments.
Top Comments
I first realised the extent of this when doing an mobile phone quiz and 2/3 of participants got a question asking what the time would be if the hands were at certain positions wrong. It really isn't that hard to learn how to read an analogue clock and it's still useful to know - anything digital requires power. So if you're out bushwalking, what's going to more useful? A digital watch you can't charge or an analogue watch?
As for the last tweet saying about cursive - it's a more efficient way of writing that means you can write more quickly and clearly. Obviously a greater amount of communication is done digitally, but there is still benefit in knowing how to hold a pen and shape letters.