Yesterday a new watch arrived at my door that I recently purchased on ebay. I was excited for it to get here, as I have been without a watch for a few months now, and I have been suffering the consequences of never knowing what time it is (especially when I am teaching my class), and I really liked this particular watch and thought that I would not be able to find it as they had been discontinued (I am picky about these sorts of things).
Anyway, though she offered, I had absolutely no interest in borrowing my wife's watch (she has a backup), because I would rather do without that use her digital watch. She was puzzled that I could not tolerate a digital watch, and I was curious about how this revealed differences in our thinking. I am also curious as to whether any readers have strong preferences either way and if any of you have preferences that are opposite your spouse/significant other's.
The reason that I prefer analog is that I am a spatial thinker; I interpret time in terms of space, and to me, fifteen minutes is more easily symbolized by a hand moving 90 degrees around a dial. To me, the space that the hand travels is like a map of the fifteen minutes, whereas if we represent this amount of time into the digits 1 and 5, I have no map, but rather a symbol of the time, which I must then convert in my own mind into the map. Many people who have an analog watch for style's sake find themselves converting the analog time into digits so they can "tell" themselves what time it is. For me, if I read a digital watch, I usually convert it into analog time (not always, but esoecally if I am looking forward to a particular time, I need the spatial representation in order to conceptualize how much closer I am to the time I am looking forward to).
To some of you this may sound really bizarre (I'll just go ahead and preempt the sarcastic comments right there), but can anyone identify with this?
Posted by Matthew Pearson at November 7, 2003 10:10 PM | TrackBacki prefer not to wear a watch and spend my time thinking about more important things like how many kidney beans to put into my chili. or survivor. i hang my welcome back, kotter clock in class everyday. when the long hand reaches vinnie barbarino's flybacks, it's time to go.
Posted by: jeremy at November 7, 2003 10:40 PMbizarre. you just explained the *exact* way that i feel about digital vs. analog watches. i can't stand the exactness of the digital, and much prefer to look at the incrimates of space between the minute and hour hands of the analog.
Posted by: andy patton at November 9, 2003 05:33 PMThe other thing about analog is that they are actually more precise than digital, because most digital watches don't give you the seconds.
Posted by: kathryn at November 9, 2003 10:01 PMFascinating. I also hate not having my watch (this time, my spouse keeps borrowing it). But I think I'm mostly indifferent between digital and analog. How do I interpret time? I don't know if I even think in those terms. I used to, growing up, interpret time in terms of what television show was on at that time, on that given day (you now know all you need to know about my childhood). But as for needing to know the exact time at any given moment, I find the digital and analog do nicely - but maybe it's because I'm always running behind, and so either one makes me panic.
Posted by: scott cunningham at November 10, 2003 12:32 PMI like my digi watch because i can sync it with microsoft outlook so i dont have to think about the events that i am "looking forward" to. My watch does my thinking for me (on a small scale of course).
Posted by: Felix at November 14, 2003 10:44 AMI was talking more about events such as the end of class--things minutes, not days, into the future. Of course, the more your machines think for you, the more thought you can devote to other things. Economists call that progress.
Posted by: Matthew at November 14, 2003 10:55 AMI like analog watches. A dead digital watch is never accurate, but a dead analog watch is accurate twice a day. And also, most digital watches (like the waterproof ones, which are most of them) are made to be so that you can't change the battery and have to buy a new one when the battery dies.
Posted by: Dean at April 27, 2006 06:11 AMI hate analog watches and love digital ones.
I most like the exactness of them (contrary to kathryn's review, even many cheap ones like casios comes with seconds) combined with instant parsability: the exact number is simply displayed, no thinking required.
I also like many of the modes, especially alarms and timers. Again, the cheapest ones from casio come with all of these and more, while many expensive analog watches do not.
The main complaint that I have with all quartz based watches, digi or analog, is their drift over time. Apparently this is due to changes in air pressure, temperature, and decreasing voltage as your battery wears down. But all of these effects could be trivially calibrated for and corrected inside the watch given todays integrated circuit technology. But no manufacturer seems to want to make an accurate standalone watch. Instead, their latest gimmick is to use the atomic clock radio signals to synch their watches.
I also have a problem with casios in that I cannot stand to wear a watch, but always put it inside my pocket, and the cheap plastic transparent window that they use ends up getting scratched over time.
Posted by: captain midnight at June 29, 2006 09:12 AMI always like to know the exact time, and sometimes have alarms set as well. When it comes to precicely knowing the time, nothing could do a better job than a good digital watch.
Contrary to Dean's comment, if you buy a GOOD $150-$500 digital watch, then you most certainly will be given an option to get the battery changed.
I'm confused at Kathryn's comment - 99% of digital watches tell the seconds (accuracy is their whole point), while a good chunk of analogue watches don't (especially the expensive "designer" ones).
What I dislike are cheap digital watches that literally lose/gain 10 seconds every week - only the expensive ones are well worth it.
But then again, I've seen some really bad analogue watches costing over $1000...all on the brand name, and not the fact that it only has a "12" and a "6" written on it, is rectangle, and therefore can't even tell the time to the nearest 5 minutes.
What is the point of labelling an expensive analogue watch's mechanism "super accurate", when they are not even designed to tell the exact time? Most analogue watches don't have alarms either...humans need reminders every now and then, and nothing serves better than an alarm.