You’re on a date. It’s going great, but they keep looking at their watch. You’re in class. The lecture is interesting, but the professor keeps glancing at their wrist. Am I old-fashioned, or are Apple Watches not the most annoying thing in the world? I think they’re the most ridiculous piece of mainstream technology.
To me, a watch is for checking the time. I wear one every day. I feel completely vulnerable and lost without one on, even though I usually check the time on my phone or computer. Because I associate my analog watch with time, I assume anyone who’s constantly looking at theirs is watching the clock.
In the date scenario, I would think the other person is bored of me and counting the minutes until they can leave. In the class scenario, I’m going to get antsy that class is almost over. Most likely, though, the date or the professor are reading a text or seeing an email notification, but isn’t this a rude communication pathway?
Constantly looking down at our watch during conversation with real, in-person humans is terrible. Our wrist gets a buzzed notification or text, and we suddenly have to check it just like we could check our phones, only now made faster to ignore our surroundings.
Cell phones are no better, but most of us at least keep those in our pockets, purses and backpacks, and we aren’t literally and metaphorically shackled to them in the same way. We may miss the faint tone or not feel the vibration of the notification on cell phones, but we always see or feel them on our smart watch.
What really is the point of these devices? Sure, you can manage some things and respond to texts like you can on your cell phone, but you also have to have a cell phone to use them. So, really, what’s the point?
These watches irritate me for many reasons, but mostly because of their interruption in one-on-one communication. Please don’t direct your attention from people to look at your wrist or your phones. It’s rude, and many of us are tired of it. Besides, it’s just another ploy for the technological businesses to take more of their consumer’s money for an accessory that works the same as a cell phone, only smaller.
Take a look at how many people have the same, dull, square watch face now with the popularity of the Apple Watch. I don’t know about you, but I’ll take my analog watch any day with its leather strap and shiny silver face over an ugly black square that looks like a probational ankle monitor.
