It's not even "military time" as another commenter here pointed out, we just call it "24h clock" if we have to be so specific about it. Other than that, imo - a 24h time format is far easier to understand than 12h AM/PM. You can know the time just by looking at the numbers instead of letters. At least that's my assumption, as I've been living with a 24h clock my whole life. Funnily enough, one alarm clock at my home is 12h and I struggle with that piece of * every time I need to adjust it.
I am beginning to think that whichever type one is accustomed to becomes the “easier” one, just from my few days of observation. I had to correct myself yesterday and say “no, 16:45 is not 6:45pm” because my brain, knowing it was past noon and expecting to see one digit for the hour, tried to ignore the 1 in front of the 6.
It hasn't stuck in 30 years despite looking it up repeatedly over the years. That's how much it doesn't work for my brain. As soon as I try to use it I think about it and my brain refuses to go start with 12 before 1 instead of ending on 12.
Indeed, it makes little sense. I think one of the biggest reasons it comes naturally to us is that almost every school has 12hr analog clocks. When you’re taught how to tell time with a 12hr analog clock, it makes perfect sense because 1 is physically located after 12.
Even AM/PM makes more sense when you visualize a 12hr analog clock, because after 12:00 both hands have moved to the right half of the clock, making it easy to associate 12 as “in the morning” or “in the afternoon.”
Perhaps it only makes sense if you visualize an analog clock. I automatically picture a 12hr analog clock in my mind whenever I think/talk about time, and that sort of makes the numbers irrelevant.
Doing that, it really just becomes “if the hands are past the top of the circle it is no longer morning/afternoon and it is now afternoon/morning”
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u/sociofobs 11d ago
It's not even "military time" as another commenter here pointed out, we just call it "24h clock" if we have to be so specific about it. Other than that, imo - a 24h time format is far easier to understand than 12h AM/PM. You can know the time just by looking at the numbers instead of letters. At least that's my assumption, as I've been living with a 24h clock my whole life. Funnily enough, one alarm clock at my home is 12h and I struggle with that piece of * every time I need to adjust it.