Hands vs. face.

Does this happen to you? I always think I have more time on an analog clock than on a digital clock, even if it's the same time. 

For example, suppose I know I have to be out the door by 10:30 to get somewhere on time, and I'm still getting dressed. I look at this and feel confident I can make it. 

I look at this, and I panic. 

But they both mean the same thing: I got seven minutes to haul ass. 

I think there are two related reasons for this, one reasonable and the other not. The reasonable one is that on the analog face, you see the second hand move, or at least how far the minute hand is from the next minute, but on the digital face you don't know when the next minute will click. However, digital faces that show the seconds are no help, and can actually be worse because I feel the passing of time more acutely. 

I thought at first that the clock face, being less intuitive than the digital, didn't make me panic because I didn't grasp the lack of time as immediately as I do with the digital, but I think that's wrong. I've been reading clock faces for as long as I knew my numbers, so they're both instantly understandable. The actual unreasonable reason is that mechanical motion itself is itself intuitive, where as movements of light particles are not. I don't see the workings of the clock but I know it's a mechanical motion, like a wheel turning or legs walking. With the digital clock there's nothing but electricity resulting in lights, no motion to understand by watching. So I think the digital clock looks to my lizard brain like it is striking down time at random speed, while the mechanical clock is understandably at a steady pace. Does that make sense? 

I hope so, because I went looking into this online and there may be even more to the situation. A news story from Australia notes a few differences in perception between clock-face time and digital time, including that clock-face time is circular and digital time is linear. So I'm seeing the sweep of the hand as a circular (and, I imagine, more relaxing) movement, whereas the digital clock is shooting in one direction like a bullet. And the site Zapier notes in an article that "A simple instrument such as a digital clock affects your perception of time differently than an analogue one. The latter represents time as a process, with visual cues as to what has passed and what comes next. A digital clock just shows the time in this moment."

On the whole, I think I'll stick with my analog watch and digital alarm clock. I need the alarm clock to get me moving, but the rest of the time I'd rather see time as a process -- I can get more done that way.