Telling the Time (for fun and profit)

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I learned to tell time when I went to first grade (didn't attend any earlier schooling). Prior to that, I had no need. Learning to read a clock involved learning the position of the hands, of course - as a practical matter, no timepieces of other design existed in my world.

My kids learned to "read" digital clocks at only a few years of age, though they couldn't "tell the time" at two or three years old - they recognized numbers, and if asked by one of the adults about to "go look at the VCR and tell me what it says" they'd come back and recite: "it's an "O" and a "1" and a "3" and a "5" or whatever.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

I learned the clock when I was about 3. I'm not certain, though, if that's normal since by that age I could also read and write which at that time (early 1960s) was unusual.
I learned to read digital clocks quite a bit later than kids do nowadays since they were invented only when I was a teenager (the same goes for electronic calculators)

At 3 I could count and do simple sums up to a total of 20, using fingers and toes. The idea to do maths in writing never occured to me and was introduced to me at school, at the age of 6.
I'm fairly certain that all kids who endulge in board games involving dice can count up to 6 by a very early age.

By the age of 4 I knew money and could go on little shopping errands for my mom. At 5 I regularly did the shopping together with my little brother (every time we got 3 gummi bears each from the nice lady in the dairy shop, which was rather a motivation to us, heehee)


Btw, when I went shopping today, I came across 3 staff members in my supermarket who desperately tried to figure out how to add 16% VAT to the wholesale price (which I did in my head within a few seconds and I'm far from being a maths crack). It's absolutely shocking how little the young folks nowadays know about basic mathematical operations!
(present company excluded, of course!!)

 

[thestrangequark]

Just for context for those who are uncertain about when it's "normal" to tell time, most kids have a pretty messed up comprehension of time until about the age of 4-5. At 3 a child who is developmentally on course can use time words like "soon", "later", or "now", but has very little if any concept of past, present, and future. A child at this age is unable to recognize that a photo of him or herself as a baby is actually him or herself. While it would be possible to train a child younger than 4 to tell time, it is unlikely the child would really grasp the concept. Any child who did would be savant-like and prodigious. Genrally, children in kindergarten (age 5-6) can grasp concepts like tomorrow, yesterday, next week, next month, and times of day like morning, noon, and night. They may start learning to tell time by the hour, and with a lot of teaching, could learn to use the clock pretty proficiently. Most kids don't start learning to tell time until first grade, and continue to learn telling time in second and the beginning of third. Most kids really start grasping the concept around the ages of 6 and 7.

 

[MacLeod]

. . . (Though certain countries have yet to adopt more widespread use of the 24hr clock)

In the USA, the 24-hour clock is called "military time," because that's who uses it.

Before the age of cell-phones (well, that is to say; only execs and douches had them) I knew the placement and accuracy of all clocks in down-town Odense* -and as I grew old enough to sometimes actually want to know the time I bought myself a pocket watch...

Does anyone still manufacture pocket watches? I associate them with gentlemen in three-piece suits with handlebar mustaches.

Yes I know that, which is why I said more widespread use. In the UK for example a bus/train timetable will be. News stations such as BBC News will show time in the 24hr format.

So in written format 24hr tends to be used whilst in conversation 12hr format tends to be used.

Though the questions to ask is why has the US been slower to adopt the 24hr hour format into more civilian applications?

 

[trekkiedane]

Just for context for those who are uncertain about when it's "normal" to tell time, most kids have a pretty messed up comprehension of time until about the age of 4-5.

Kids: Tomorrow, or even later is ages away.
Adolescents: Next summer is "when I'm ooold".
Adults: "I'll wither away before it's week-end again" AND "what?... is it already Monday again?"
Old people: "What? me 'old'? -but I just finished college..."

I'm basically saying the same as science: time is relative, only it depends on the amount you've already had as well as your speed and the strength of the gravimetric field you are in.

 

[thestrangequark]

^I guess everyone has a pretty messed up comprehension of time. But yeah, that's taking it to a whole other realm of complexity! That's more perception of time than comprehension of time, really. Everyone's perception of time is different, and different at different times, but our comprehension of the concept of time develops just like our motor or language skills, and follows a developmental timeline that is generally consistent.

 

[Rarewolf]

And as silly as this sounds, I've always "understood" time better on a real clock rather than a digital one. I need to see the full circle and the placement of the hands to really get a sense of the concept of time and what the current time is in relation to the full day. Hard to explain, but there you go.

Opposite for me, I can't read analogue, at least not quickly or instinctively. I call it chronodyslexia. They never picked up on it all school - in written tests you had all the time in the world to tell the time.

It was only when it came to telling the time in french I noticed the problem.

I got judged the other day because I still wear a watch. "Don't you have a cellphone?" is the question I kept being asked. Yes, I have a cellphone, but I like wearing a watch. I have worn a watch every day since I was 14; I feel naked without it.

I really used to feel the same, I felt like I was missing a sense when I was without a watch. But since I got an iPhone last year, hardly worn a watch at all. Got a new one for my Birthday today and am wearing it, but I dunno, it feels a bit restrictive having it on my wrist after all this time.

Edit - just goes to show - I just looked at it for the first time, times wrong, dates wrong... been wearing it about 10 hours and never even noticed - today of all days!

Just for context for those who are uncertain about when it's "normal" to tell time, most kids have a pretty messed up comprehension of time until about the age of 4-5.

Kids: Tomorrow, or even later is ages away.
Adolescents: Next summer is "when I'm ooold".
Adults: "I'll wither away before it's week-end again" AND "what?... is it already Monday again?"
Old people: "What? me 'old'? -but I just finished college..."

I'm basically saying the same as science: time is relative, only it depends on the amount you've already had as well as your speed and the strength of the gravimetric field you are in.

When you are at school terms seem to last forever, and holidays nothing, when you are older it seems they are on holiday every other week!

Distance can be relative too. I remember when I first met my 2nd Cousin several years ago, he asked if I lived a long way a way like his grandparents. I assumed he meant his mother's parents in America. He didn't. He meant the one who lived not even half a mile away!

I dont remember when I first became aware of time, but do remember learning left/right.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

I find analogue time easier. After all, it's still used in every day conversations: a quarter past 11, half past 8, 5 minutes to 12 etc. When I use such expressions, I actually picture an analogue clock in my mind. But admittedly, I do have a very strong optical memory.

thestrangequark, I am not 100% d'accord with your timeline. I suspect that such things are influenced both by the cultural and social background and by the generation. No offense meant to young people nowadays, but at my time kids learned such things much quicker. It's possibly because personal computers weren't invented back then and there were only 3 TV stations (and no special programmes for children). Kindergartens were not all that popular either, since most kids were raised by their mothers or grandparents. On the whole, we had a lot more contact to the adult world then and that might be the reason why we developed faster.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Though the questions to ask is why has the US been slower to adopt the 24hr hour format into more civilian applications?

Most payroll timekeeping that I've seen used the 24-hour format, as well as airlines, delivery services, some law enforcement and other first responders, etc.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

Old joke I heard on the radio years ago: a Lancastrian wore a meat pie strapped to his wrist, and when asked why he did that, he replied, "Well, when I need to check the time, I look at my wrist and I see it's summat t'eight!"



You had to be there.

But anyway, in terms of comprehension of time, I generally didn't have much problem with it. Learning the analogue clock with the first hand, the second hand and the other second hand, all was something that school actively tried to teach us. Ironically, I can't actually remember when I started to figure out the analogue clock with confidence, but by the time I was 3 I was capable of telling when a weekend was (yay! two days off nursery and wrestling with Big Daddy on the telly!) and around the same time I had understood the concept of birthdays (YAY! One day of presents!).

However, the digital timepiece including the 24 hour clock was something I picked up by myself at an early age, and coincided when my dad bought our first video recorder (a VHS Ferguson VideoStar, as it happens) which had a digital display and 24 hour clock by default. I remember that I would take the digital display and correlate that with what the analogue clock in our house said, and it very quickly clicked that this clock measured total hours in a day as opposed to the traditional am/pm system.

I do have very fond memories of mathematics as a young child, although I understand that I was a very slow learner who picked things up quickly later in childhood. When I was 4, my mother would write out the numbers 1 to 100 in a 10x10 grid, and I remember taking a lot of pleasure in knowing that there were numbers out there greater than 10. The concept of thousands and millions and things came later than they should have come, as did percentages and world currencies, although I did understand decimals a few months before most others did at school. Maths was my favourite school subject back then, and probably the only one I truly grasped with both hands at a young age, although my teacher did say that I was also good at creative writing during those underachieving years.

Those days are long gone now.

Just for context for those who are uncertain about when it's "normal" to tell time, most kids have a pretty messed up comprehension of time until about the age of 4-5.

Kids: Tomorrow, or even later is ages away.
Adolescents: Next summer is "when I'm ooold".
Adults: "I'll wither away before it's week-end again" AND "what?... is it already Monday again?"
Old people: "What? me 'old'? -but I just finished college..."

I'm basically saying the same as science: time is relative, only it depends on the amount you've already had as well as your speed and the strength of the gravimetric field you are in.

^I guess everyone has a pretty messed up comprehension of time. But yeah, that's taking it to a whole other realm of complexity! That's more perception of time than comprehension of time, really. Everyone's perception of time is different, and different at different times, but our comprehension of the concept of time develops just like our motor or language skills, and follows a developmental timeline that is generally consistent.

Well, now that you two have brought up the subject I have found that when I'm feeling tired out, sometimes I note that a familiar piece of music on the radio or my computer does seem like it's playing at a slightly slower tempo than what I'm used to in my memory - it feels off by maybe one or two beats per minute, at least temporarily, even though objectively the recording is playing at an uninterrupted, unimpeded tempo.

Similarly, the dream state is another whole different landscape entirely when it comes to comparing the perception of the passage of time. When I start to nod off to sleep while something is playing in the background, it feels as if the live radio or TV broadcast momentarily skips when I start to nod off while still listening to the broadcast, then suddenly I wake up to catch up with the rest, and it feels like the dream-like state has added seconds to my mind's internal chronology of events.

My mind is an awesome place, but I wouldn't want to live there... Nah, I kid, it's not too bad.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

Generally, children in kindergarten (age 5-6) can grasp concepts like tomorrow, yesterday, next week, next month, and times of day like morning, noon, and night. They may start learning to tell time by the hour, and with a lot of teaching, could learn to use the clock pretty proficiently.

Really? Not that I'm saying I doubt what you're saying, but I'm surprised to hear that most only start telling the time by the hour at 5-6, and that it takes "a lot" of training. I mastered clock-based time within a few weeks after my second birthday (my second birthday present was a watch), and could answer adults' "what time is this?" questions easily.

 

[thestrangequark]

^Your experience would be exceedingly rare, then. I taught kindergarten through 3rd grade for 6 years, after studying education, psychology, and brain development. I never encountered a child who could could do that. The two possibilities would be either that you might have learned clock time by rote without a deeper understanding of what it actually meant (and as adults we have very poor memory of what we actually understood as children), or were truly prodigious. Either is completely possible, and usually I would say the first is more likely, but given that you were excited enough by watches to get one for your 2nd birthday it sounds completely plausible that you were a prodigious time-teller! I have a baby cousin who is a prodigious guitar obsessor: he is 18 months old and can flip through a guitar book and name every model, he can recognize the sounds of all the major western stringed instruments, from cello to ukelele, all while barely able to form a complete sentence. Apparently at that age my own obsession was bridges (I got an architects' book about bridge design when I was two), and I could name the various types. So, in summation, if you were obsessed enough it makes sense that you'd learn time-telling early, but that is definitely not the age at which kids usually learn it.

 

[thestrangequark]

Well, now that you two have brought up the subject I have found that when I'm feeling tired out, sometimes I note that a familiar piece of music on the radio or my computer does seem like it's playing at a slightly slower tempo than what I'm used to in my memory - it feels off by maybe one or two beats per minute, at least temporarily, even though objectively the recording is playing at an uninterrupted, unimpeded tempo.

That reminds me of a really fun experiment about time-perception: Researchers created a digital display that flashed a random series of numbers at a speed too high for anyone to read. They showed the display to their subjects and the subjects then attempted to recall any string of numbers that they saw. They were completely unable to pick out any of the numbers, and this was verified with a high-speed camera. Next, researchers hauled the subjects up onto a platform some 40 or 60 feet high (I can't remember the actual height of the fall), and dropped them onto an airbag. On the way down, subjects had to attempt to read the number strings. When falling, they were able to read the numbers and recall them later, even though they were still being flashed at the same "impossible" to read speed.

It all makes sense, though...if you're pumped full of adrenaline it's likely because you're in danger (at least from an evolutionary standpoint), so your perception of time would slow, allowing you to absorb and react to stimuli more quickly. My guess is that this would be to the deficit of accuracy. I think time perception, along with optical illusions, is one of the best examples of how inaccurate our perceptions really are.

 

[Colonel Green]

I really can't remember how old I was when I learned to tell time, but I clearly remember mastering place value at age 3, so it was probably around the same time.

When I was is grade 11 (age 16, IIRC) one of my classmates told me he didn't know how to read an analog clock I was blown away, as he seemed to be a fairly intelligent person. My reaction was akin to that I'd have if he'd said he didn't know how to tie his shoes.

 

[RoJoHen]

I actually knew quite a few people growing up that couldn't read a clock. They claimed they never learned how. In a lot of cases, it was people who had moved a lot. What some people learned in kindergarten other people learned in 1st grade, and if you moved to a new school district in between those years, you could end up missing things.

I moved the summer between my 3rd and 4th grades. My old school district, it turns out, was a year ahead of my new school district. My 4th grade experience was basically a huge repeat of everything I had already learned the year before. I had already mastered things like long division and writing in cursive, while the kids in my new school had never even encountered it before.

 

[Holdfast]

For an otherwise pretty bright kid, I was pretty late in learning to tell the time. I think I just never needed to, so never bothered, you know? I was about 5 when I learned, and I remember being embarrassed because that was when we covered it in class. All the other kids could do it already and I got flustered by that because I was normally ahead of the rest. Somehow telling the time got left behind... I remember that evening asking my parents to teach me so I didn't have to feel stupid at school the next day!

Strangely enough, I always wear an analogue watch... go figure...

 

[RoJoHen]

Frankly, I'm way more impressed that people remember when they learned to tell time. I barely remember anything prior to age 9.

 

[Yoda]

Really? Not that I'm saying I doubt what you're saying, but I'm surprised to hear that most only start telling the time by the hour at 5-6, and that it takes "a lot" of training. I mastered clock-based time within a few weeks after my second birthday (my second birthday present was a watch), and could answer adults' "what time is this?" questions easily.

What kind of a monster would give a watch to a two year old for his birthday?

Anyway, I don't imagine I had any clue how to read any number or letter at age 2. I know I didn't start to learn to read until first grade, age 6-ish. I suppose I unwittingly got some prep work from Sesame Street and the like, but my parents just let the school system do its thing. Heck, they were still very much learning English themselves back then. I kind of wonder what it was like, I know they spoke to me in the mother tongue, maybe my older brother spoke English to me, and then of course TV... but I don't know if I really grasped the concept that I was dealing with two different languages.

I never dealt with any kids who didn't know how to read an analog clock, I mean, every classroom I've ever been in has had an analog clock, and if there is one thing a student can concentrate and learn, it's when class/school ends.

I never liked watches. And yes, in the era of the smartphone, you do look like an old fuddy-duddy wearing one, unless it's doubling as bling. In which case you just look like a douche.

 

[RoJoHen]

I never liked watches. And yes, in the era of the smartphone, you do look like an old fuddy-duddy wearing one, unless it's doubling as bling. In which case you just look like a douche.

But watches are so much easier than phones! My watch is on my wrist. My phone requires work to dig out of my pockets.

 

[Holdfast]

Frankly, I'm way more impressed that people remember when they learned to tell time. I barely remember anything prior to age 9.

The searing embarassment of being the only one unable to tell the time in class is etched in my memory. To the point that I even remember the content of the "lesson" after the one we were meant to tell the time. We went to the TV room and watched one of those educational children's programmes. All throughout, I was thinking "how come I can't tell the time? It shouldn't be that hard if everyone else can do it?!"