by Alec Muffett
Pop quiz: right now, as you read this, how many chronometers or devices with chronometric functions have you that you carry with you for most of a business day?
eg: iPod, cellphone, watch, PDA, laptop, digicamera…?
I’m down to three – phone, digicamera (IXUS 700 has a clock mode) and iPod – and on the basis of that I don’t bother with a watch.
Previously I’ve been as high as five, and still not had a watch.
Other than aesthetics, is there any reason for wearing a watch nowadays?
Convenience. Surrounding me I have four devices that could tell me the time :
My watch My PC My desk phone My mobile
I still find it easier to check the time by looking at the analogue watch on my left wrist that to check any of the other three. I also find analogue faces easier to tell the time than digital displays – I’m probably after the approximate time, eg “3.20 pm” rather than “3.21 pm” which is easier to do with a face with hands.
Rats – I forgot to enter my name 🙂
On the basis of “he who has multiple clocks is never sure what the time is”, my watch is my reference time source.
As with Jander above, I have 4 devices to hand which display the time; laptop, ‘phone on desk, mobile ‘phone in holster, watch. The two ‘phones (both internal quartz I suspect) disagree with eachother, and also disagree with my laptop and watch. The laptop runs an NTP client, and it and the watch usually agree (unless I leave the laptop disconnected from a network for a while).
Glancing at my wrist is much easier than getting a ‘phone or laptop out. Also, my watch tells me the day and date at at a glance – which none of the others do.
I also use the stopwatch on my watch when cooking.
Almost always got my Treo on me… normally wearing my pedometer… often carrying a camera (750 here)…
But I decided I should get a watch, a decent one, for two reasons: aesthetics and convenience. The aethsetics is more than just ‘because it looks good’ – although that is a factor – but rather, it’s because using a Treo or a pedometer to check the time looks *bad*. I already look geeky enough, and I don’t need to make things more obvious by, whenever I want to know what time it is, either bringing out a small brick and flicking a bright screen on, or flipping open a little box on my belt – wearing a watch is aethsetic, but looking at one is also more aethsetic than the alternatives. Convenience is pretty much the same thing: by having a device strapped to your wrist which does nothing except tell the time on the face, finding out the time takes a quick glimpse at the wrist, rather than pulling something out and opening/activating it.
So, just before the holidays, when my parents were making present-buying noises, I mentioned that I’d been considering looking for a decent watch – by which I mean decent-looking, as well as decent quality. The got me a nice watch – and got my sisters a TomTom Go GPS each 🙂 The fact that the watch didn’t actually work was a minor side-issue…
Well, as with the others here, although I have a Treo and machine in front of me some of the time, the watch is far more convenient.
For a start, I don’t have to reach into my pocket, take the watch out of the pocket, use two hands to extract the watch from its case, press two buttons to bring it out of hibernation and then search for the time in one small corner of the display, as I have to with my Treo. I merely have to move my arm up to a position that I can glance at the display and look.
As for the watch itself, it’s a 23 year old metal cased Timex digital which has an excellent bettery life, quartz glass bezel which is hard to scratch and does all I need and looks ok. Why do I need to change it?
Me.
I don’t have a mobile phone with me most of the time. I go to as many places on foot as possible … my only way of getting the time is by consulting my watch or possibly by stopping someone in the street when I am doing the school run and wondering if Amy’s slow walking is going to make me late 🙂
There is a reason why wrist watches superceded pocket watches.
I don’t *need* a watch to tell me what time it is, as I tend to have two mobile phones, a laptop, a PC or Sun Ray, and often a wall clock nearby.
I did get myself a wristwatch, even though I obviously have too many things that tell the time already mostly because it’s useful to have a heart rate monitor when training (so I got a Polar), and it’s nice not to have to dig around for your pocketwatch or mobile phone whenever you need to know what time it is.
I still take the watch of when practising the pipes, though, as I feel it restricts hand and finger movements somewhat…
On the aesthetics side I much prefer a simple analogue watch too. Maybe I’m too boring, but I tend to find these huge chunky designer watches either ugly or far to difficult to read – ie they’ve either got small faces or far too many dials. My watch is now ~13 years old and just has H/M/S hands and the day of the month – as simple as can be (oh and my version of an engagement ring that Em [who posted below] gave me).
Well, over the last week I’ve been conducting a little experiment – this is the longest I’ve gone without a watch for 22 years. My watch broke last week and I decided to wait a while before replacing it.
And it’s a bleeding nightmare. My watches have always been waterproof, so I very rarely ever take them off. (Apart from anything they seem to lose time if I take them off – I guess the constant temperature helps). When I’m wearing a watch I know the time without having to think about it – because I glance at it without even realising I’ve done so umpteen zillion times a day. I keep realising I’ve lost a whole afternoon because I just had no idea how much time had gone by. My internal clock is obviously completely atrophied after 22 years. If I have to depend on remembering to make that extra effort of getting out a timekeeper, I’m sunk, because I’m just not used to having to make a conscious effort to check the time anymore.
So yes, I definitely need a watch. Still don’t think I can quite justify buying the utterly cool slide rule watch though.
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