Do they not teach reading clocks in school anymore? I remember like a quarter of first grade math being nothing but learning to read an analog clock. Surely if you're a school and discover a bunch of your students are lacking in a basic skill, that's a failure on your part as educators, not somehow a fault that your students don't have clocks at home. You said the 90s though, which was when I was in elementary, so maybe I just got lucky to have a school that assumed they had to teach us everything.

I remember really struggling with it as a kid and I still have the same “ok, think through it, what time is it likely to be? Etc.” as you, to an extent. But much much less these days vs how I was, but it was always a focused effort for a long time for me.

Not once have I multiplied the number the minute digit is pointing to by 5 when reading a clock.

There are four checkpoints for me : 15, 30, 45 and 60 (full hour) at the quarter points. I just add 5 minutes or subtract 5 minutes for every 5 minute step depending on what quarter point is closer.

Except we very much still use analogue clocks. They’re everywhere. Being able to read a clock when your cell phone isn’t handy is still a useful skill. And it’s not like it’s that hard to learn to read one. If you can’t figure out an analogue clock with a few minutes of instruction, well, you’ve got bigger issues.

I've had the opposite experience. I learn many things I don't use because knowing them makes me see and think things differently and expands my mind.

Absolutely do learn things you don't think you need. Everything will be useful eventually in life. I've proved that to myself many times.

Speaking as someone who writes in cursive, has a couple of nice clocks and watches, and can drive a manual transmission... Yeah, times are a changing. I think it is fun to learn those skills, but not necessary. My school didn't teach me how to hitch up a team of horses, nor how to sharpen an axe or load a flintlock musket. Digital clocks are cheap enough and common enought that learning analog is not strictly necessary.

Be careful not to melt your tiny brain by learning something as easy as reading an analog clock.

“Don’t learn what you don’t use”

Sure but if you wear an analog watch you just learned how to use your analog watch. It’s not that hard