Synchronization of Public Timekeeping Devices in Malaysia to Malaysian Standard Time

Time is essential to everyday life, and thus it is among the most measured quantity. People tell time through timekeeping devices such as wristwatch and mobile phone and these devices will give various accuracy. Accuracy is related to the difference between a reference time and time shown by the devices. Up to now, far too little attention has been paid to the area of timekeeping accuracy. Most of the timekeeping studies especially in accuracy are done specifically in medical area. For this purpose, this study aimed to determine current public timekeeping accuracy. Public timekeeping accuracy is important for meetings, appointments and many other public time-reference applications. Besides, this study investigated the most preferred timekeeping device utilized by the public. The Malaysian Standard Time was used as the reference time, seeing that it is provided by the appointed national timekeeper. The reference time was compared to the displayed time on the timekeeping device of participants. The obtained results indicated that the most preferred time device employed by the public was mobile phone. The study revealed that the mean error for overall data according to the type of timekeeping devices was 1.32 min (S.D. ±2.09min).