By Peter Pavarini
Does it matter that 16% of American adults can’t read an analog clock? [i]
A generation of young people who have grown up using smartphones, smartwatches and other digital devices don’t see the need to tell time from the hands on an analog clock face. From the perspective of someone born during the rotary phone age, I’m used to being surrounded by both analog and digital clocks. For that reason, timekeeping’s “digital divide” didn’t occur to me until my granddaughter’s 2nd grade class began learning how to read an analog clock (along with other archaic practices like cursive handwriting). That triggered a high school memory of my classmates who had elected to study Latin instead of a modern foreign language. [ii]
Why Analog Clocks Look the Way They Do
Keeping track of time with the big and little hands of an analog clock always felt natural to me. Of course, I knew digital clocks provided the same information, but because they didn’t correlate with the sun’s movement relative to Earth, they seemed somewhat artificial. High noon and the stroke of midnight just aren’t the same when all you see is 12:00 – especially after a power outage when every digital clock is flashing 12:00. I suppose Medieval people had the same reaction when analog clocks replaced sundials, but at least mechanical clocks provided an advantage – they worked after the sun went down. Now, the smartphone by your bedside only serves to remind you that you should be sleeping rather than staring at the ceiling wide awake.
Admittedly, digital technology has its advantages but not necessarily when it comes to timekeeping. As every owner of an expensive Swiss-made, self-winding watch knows, the high-precision movement of gears and springs always measures time more precisely than a digital watch – especially one powered by a failing lithium battery. It’s easy to envy those wearing Apple iWatches who continuously monitor their cardiovascular health while checking the latest stock prices, but for the most part I only want to know the time of day. My mechanical Italian army watch does a perfectly good job of that.
The End of Analog Technology?
In 1992, a New York Times headline predicted the end of books. [iii] It was argued that the future of literature would be all digital. Printed media would be “dead as God.” Similar predictions have been made for vinyl records, film and even paper itself. Yet the digital revolution has failed to extinguish these antiquated technologies. Even as computers have gotten faster, and our lives become more interconnected, analog formats are making a comeback. Printed books remain twice as popular as e-readers, vinyl record sales have hit a 30-year high, and some online retailers are opening new brick and mortar stores. Why is that?
Why Analog Technology Endures
There’s a practical answer to this question. In many cases, analog information lasts longer. Museums preserve many paper records (as well as those written on clay or stone) but where do you go to see the first email ever sent? I’ve seen Daguerreotypes displayed in historical exhibits, but where do you go to see examples of the first digital photos? Similarly, music aficionados continue to cherish their vinyl LPs but no one places much value on their disposable MP3 files. In many cases, early examples of digital media storage, such as floppy drives, have become unreadable just a decade or two after they were replaced by new technology.
There’s also a cultural reason why it has been hard to replace the analog world. Once writing allowed humans to store knowledge outside of their brains and oral traditions,[iv] our species was liberated to explore new frontiers of creativity. We treasured those repositories of information because they could literally be handed down from one generation to the next. The library acquired a mystique that has endured into the 21st century. Even though we can store vastly more data in the Cloud than a library as large as Alexandria’s legendary edifice[v], there’s nothing like the atmosphere of a quiet, cozy reading room.
In a digital world we are continuously harassed by scam artists, bots and algorithms. We are refused credit, passed over for jobs and denied benefits based upon digital data over which we have no control. The greatest price we pay for the speed and convenience of living in a digital society is the loss of social belonging. In the high-touch analog world a person’s social network was not readily accessible and certainly not searchable. However, one’s closest relationships played a major role in determining his or her character and success. Today, some people can have hundreds of thousands of followers in the social media yet be relatively unknown in the communities where they live.
At Home in the Analog World
Perhaps for this reason alone, 70% of US households still have at least one analog clock[vi], and 85% have at least one printed book[vii]. There’s something about analog objects that provides us certainty in a rapidly changing world. How well we live our lives has less to do with how quickly we adopt new technology and more with what we do with those resources we are given. In the words of German author Michael Ende:
“Clocks exist to measure time, but that signifies little because we all know that an hour can seem like an eternity or pass in a flash, according to how we spend it.”
[i] This compares with the 21% of Americans who are said to be functionally illiterate. See 2022 data posted at www.thenationalilliteracyinstitute.com.
[ii] At the time, I didn’t realize I’d be required to learn a fair amount of Latin when I attended law school several years later.
[iii] Robert Coover, “The End of Books”, New York Times, Jume 21, 1992.
[iv] See “Before Disaster Strikes”, www.alessandrocamp.com, January 29, 2025.
[v] At its height in ancient times, the library at Alexandria was said to have as many as 700,000 scrolls.
[vi] Fred Backus, “CBS News poll: Are analog clocks on the way out?, www.cbsnews.com, November 6, 2021.
[vii] David Montgomery, “How many books Americans own and how they organize them”, today.yougov.com, October 26, 2023.
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