Yep this is why I prefer analog watches. They are much faster to internalize the time but slower to convert to numbers. Because it’s an abstraction I innately know as someone who learned to read them as a child they are very familiar and easy to read. You really only need the actual numbers when someone asks you for the time.

Yes, if you use an analog indicator for an analog parameter, you can skip a „parse” step. Similarly, airplanes use analog indicators, or digital ones that either mimic their analog counterparts, or in some way incorporate visual aids that go past a number. This allows the pilot to, at a glance, check the values, see the rate of change, get a useful readout even if the value is noisy or oscillating.

I got a mechanical watch with a 24-hour dial, and I see it as “mid-morning”, “late afternoon” etc.

It does annoy me that it’s harder to find 24-hr dials with noon at the top and midnight at the bottom. They all put midnight at the top for some reason.

Same, I find it easier to see time on analogue. When I see 3:30 for example, in my head I see hands of a watch (in-fact, a very particular watch I grew up seeing in the shade in courtyard). I visualize not just the watch but the lighting at that time of day as well. Gives me perfect sense of how late or early in the day that time means.

The same “kids across the street” I reference in another comment needed translation from “quarter to eleven” when they’d ask the time. Makes sense given they couldn’t read an analog face at the time.

yeah, i've been using cheap mechanical analog watches and wouldn't trust it to be accurate to-the-minute by the end of the day anyway. i kind of enjoy knowing only the approximate time.

That's because one doesn't usually look at their watch to find out what the time is: most of the time (pun unintended) we want to how much time is left for an activity, or for an activity to start.

As in, how many more minutes before my flight takes off, or how much time left for this exam?