Hot tip: Don’t use your phone, tablet or computer as a glanceable timepiece. Well, maybe your computer taskbar/menubar is allowable while you’re working. But don’t be getting your phone out of your pocket to ‘check the time’… you’ll never be knowing where the time went after you’re done ‘just checking’.
‘Okay, but couldn’t I try a smart watch? That way I don’t even have to get my phone out when I get pinged a message or something. I can just glance and see who it’s from.’
Yes, but I’ve seen people get lost in notifications on their wrist just the same way they can on their phone – well, and I’ve been that guy. And let’s just say it’s about as unnecessary, but also looks even sillier to stand there staring at your wrist, poking and tapping it.
The makers of the original analogue wristwatches never envisioned us standing stock-still in the middle of the room like an avatar whose animating spirit has temporarily departed, zombified by the glowing flashes on our wrist. They were designed as an elegant timepiece, unnecessary most of the time except for the quick glance. They did one job, really well, and the rest of the time they were ornamental (and usually, actually nice to look at too – but not distractingly so).
Contrast that with the rather austere blank faces of smartwatches, and their corresponding bands, frequently also nondescript, that tether their users to the rest of the world with an invisible lead, chained to the gossip and the boss’s last minute requests and the breaking news notifications without a moment’s peace – for they are to wear it even in bed. The health apps are always monitoring you. The exercise rings demand to be closed. The bamboozling honeycomb of apps offer an overwhelming array of possible uses even just for this tiny device. One knows not where to stop.
For even if you vowed to turn off all the notifications on your watch – rather defeating the argument of having it so you don’t have to get your phone out of your pocket – the interface itself still demands something of you. Are you using this expensive piece of technology to its full potential? If you opted for a simple watch face, doesn’t that defeat the point of having a smartwatch?
And even with notifications off, the smartwatch is still designed to give you access to notifications, or content, if you choose to find them – there’s a piece of your psychology hanging on to the idea that if you’re bored you might find something new and exciting lurking there, somewhere. The problem is probably more pronounced with phones, yes, but it’s there with smartwatches too. Every glance at a digital screen (well, one with access to multiple functions and connected to notification-feeding apps) leaves a bit of ‘attention residue’ stuck there even after we’re done ‘glancing’. We look for a moment with our eyes, but for minutes or even hours our minds are still focused on whatever it might (or might possibly) have shown us.
My analogue watch tells me the time, and the date. I check it every so often, and get on with my day. It looks nice on my wrist.
Like all digital devices in our lives, we suffer the same inherent pitfalls when interacting with smartwatches: they are complex, abstract objects. The analogue wristwatch, like all analogue counterparts, offer us the same tangible benefits: they are simple, discreet, absolute objects. We know what to do with them.
Ben David Trigg 