When did people suddenly decide that watches were rubbish?

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I only know one person who uses a watch; everyone else uses their mobile phone. Why is this?

My watch battery ran out about a year ago and I didn't get around to replacing it. I recently tried on my watch and was amazed at how weird it looked on my arm. Not weird in the sense of a rubbish style watch, but in the entire concept of wearing a wristwatch.

It's not like a mobile is less hassle; often the exact opposite. So what happened? Was there a generation of reluctant watch wearers who rejoiced and having something else? Or was watch-wearing already in decline?

― Dave B (daveb), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 09:40 (twenty-two years ago)

I dig my watch & I feel really lost without it. If I don't have it on, then I use my mobile.

― Pinkpanther (Pinkpanther), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 09:42 (twenty-two years ago)

C: Being able to check the time nonchalantly without having to dig through your pockets (such as what George Bush, Sr. tried to do in 1992 presidential debate.)

D: Awful, awful wrist sweat underneath rubber watchband.

― Pleasant Plains (Pleasant Plains), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 09:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Erm, may I suggest NOT getting a rubber watchband?

― Pinkpanther (Pinkpanther), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 09:51 (twenty-two years ago)

chocolate watchband.

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 09:51 (twenty-two years ago)

mmmmmm.
Damnit, diet. :-(

― Pinkpanther (Pinkpanther), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 09:53 (twenty-two years ago)

I own neither watch nor mobile. I'm death on watches and I really can't be doing with mobile phones. I tell the time by listening to the tolling bells of churches, also the sun. Furthermore, I drink only rainwater and eat only that which falls to the earth without being plucked.

(N.B. the bit about watches and mobiles is true).

― Matt (Matt), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 09:56 (twenty-two years ago)

i wasn't a watch wearer even before mobiles took off so they've made my life easier on that basis alone. as a child i ascertained the time by looking at the sun (not directly).

― stevem (blueski), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 09:57 (twenty-two years ago)

damn x-post

― stevem (blueski), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 09:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Matt put a lot more effort in tho, kudos

― stevem (blueski), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 09:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Yr welcome

― Matt (Matt), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 09:58 (twenty-two years ago)

and the sun is in the sky so it's....daytime!

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 09:59 (twenty-two years ago)

The cellphone thing makes me feel better for pocketwatches, who have probably been feeling pretty rubbish for the past 70 years or so.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 10:00 (twenty-two years ago)

This question is mentalism. People use their mobiles because they already have mobiles. Apart from Matt. Tracer OTM about mobiles being the new pocketwatch.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 10:01 (twenty-two years ago)

i would like to see pocketwatches come back in. also monocles and scurvy.

― stevem (blueski), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 10:02 (twenty-two years ago)

YARRR!! *checks cellphone*

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 10:10 (twenty-two years ago)

"Do you take snuff? Oh! A text!"

― Matt (Matt), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 10:12 (twenty-two years ago)

The question isn't mentalism; people moved from pocketwatches to wristwatches. The move made sense in terms of the robustness of a wristwatch, the lack of waistcoats for many a person and the ease of simply looking at your wrist.

Then all of a sudden, we move backwards in terms of the functionality of the time-telling. Obv, mobiles have other advantages (being phones etc) but the wrsitwatch is dying - I find that interesting and odd.

― Dave B (daveb), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 10:13 (twenty-two years ago)

My strap broke. I got a mobe. Then that broke. Yet still I live. How?

a) this computer, what I chained to for 9 hours a day, has a clock
b) my vcr, which i am in front of for much of the evening, has a clock
c) my alarm clock is in the bedroom
d) i listen to the radio a bit
e) there are lots of churces where i live

― Enrique (Enrique), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 10:15 (twenty-two years ago)

My clock has a clock.

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 10:18 (twenty-two years ago)

I am lost without my watch, I always like to know what time it is and never got into the hang of looking at my mobly for telling the time - that's not what it's for, the watch does that job. I have two watches (both swatch) that get rotated (tho the smaller one has been dominant lately) but I'd like a swankier one too.

― chris (chris), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 10:19 (twenty-two years ago)

So why exactly don't you have a mobile, Matt? They're ever so convenient.

― Markelby (Mark C), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 10:24 (twenty-two years ago)

I feel that wristwatches are a move backward in terms of the functionality of my blithe nonchalance

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 10:27 (twenty-two years ago)

when I was eleven PENWATCHES were the kewl thing to have.

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 10:28 (twenty-two years ago)

f) I'm rocking the Flava Flav look.

― Enrique (Enrique), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 10:29 (twenty-two years ago)

What about SHOE watches where every time you tie your shoes you know what time it is! Velcro shoe-fasteners, that's what.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 10:30 (twenty-two years ago)

I did have a mobile for a bit, Mark. Then I found that I was getting called into work all the time. Also I'm pretty easy to find, so if one of my friends wants to get hold of me it's not too hard, I'll either be at home or at work, which are thirty seconds walk away from each other. If I'm not in either of thoser places then I don't want to be found - hence no mobile.

― Matt (Matt), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 10:32 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm the ultimate mentalist: I used to wear a wrist watch until 1997, but I was constantly looking at it, and I began to feel like a slave to the linear, minute time, instead of measuring time based on subjective experience. Then, in the summer of 1997 I was working as a co-director on a youth camp that took place on a ship. One day, while I was washing my teeth on the ship brim my watch fell into the ocean. Because the ship was sailing on the Gulf of Finland I had no way of acquiring a new one. I panicked for a moment, but then I thought it was a sign from a God, and I could finally get rid of my watch dependency. After a couple of days I felt no need to look at the time. So when the camp was over, I was a new person.

I've mostly only owned mobile phones without a clock, luckily. For a while I did have a mobile that showed the time, but I deliberately doctored so it would show the wrong time. I recently purchased a newer mobile which does have a clock, but the good thing is you can hide it from the screen. I'm thinking of putting it on the wrong time as well, however.

Living in the city, I think you don't need watches to get by. If you really need to know the time, there are public clocks everywhere, or you can always ask someone. The only trouble is when you're on a busstop, and you're not sure whether the next bus is coming within 2 or 22 minutes. That's a minor drawback, however, if compared to the freedom of not being a slave to the watch.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 10:54 (twenty-two years ago)

Does your wristwatch have a bus schedule, Tuomas??

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 11:01 (twenty-two years ago)

No, but Finnish bus stops have the estimate times of when the buses will pass them by.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 11:03 (twenty-two years ago)

Well there's your problem!

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 11:04 (twenty-two years ago)

I own THIS!

http://www.atommickbrane.com/bubbles/wrist.jpg

― Sarah (starry), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 11:07 (twenty-two years ago)

Haha NB the SKATE AND DESTROY sticker is NOT attached to the Beast!

― Sarah (starry), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 11:08 (twenty-two years ago)

I still cannot believe you paid actual real money for that.

― Ricardo (RickyT), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 11:08 (twenty-two years ago)

With matching nail varnish!

― caitlin (caitlin), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 11:09 (twenty-two years ago)

It is as beautiful as a fresh spring day, the voles frolicking merrily by the brook, a whimsy being spun whilst past sail several giant swans...

― Sarah (starry), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 11:10 (twenty-two years ago)

Watches are great as accessories. Mobile phones always have the uneasiness of tool use about them whether one is talking or checking the time, but a glance at a good-looking watch is like a natural motion; checking the time becomes a momentary reflection upon oneself instead of just more bustle with another thing.

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 11:10 (twenty-two years ago)

Pink fluffy money would have been bettah I agree, Ricky!!

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 11:10 (twenty-two years ago)

I think I turned into Bill Bailey there. He's catching.

― Sarah (starry), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 11:10 (twenty-two years ago)

That watch is scary!

By the way, does anyone remember the bagpacks which were equipped with huge watches? They were a craze among schoolchildren back in the eighties, at least here in Finland.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 11:11 (twenty-two years ago)

"backbags"

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 11:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Sadly I have only worn it a few times. The velcro on my coat pocket sticks to the wristband and MAULS it. It shall next go on an outing when I retrieve my NEU toggle coat.

― Sarah (starry), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 11:12 (twenty-two years ago)

technology has gone backwards quite frankly.

1980s
http://www.noos.org/ludo/jeux/octopus.jpg
wowwwwwwwwwwwww

1990s
http://www.moosy.de/snake.gif
zzzzzzzzzzz

― ken c (ken c), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 11:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Science has clearly proven that velcro is the natural predator of the watch species.

I love how the mobile phone itself in ken's second picture is like WTF with this lame game.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 11:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Maybe all my waxing rhapsodic about watches just now was because of the fact that I, by an amazing coincidence, have just won a watch on ebay that I've been enamored with for a while. I got a pretty decent deal, too.

Dig it:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2682303892

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 11:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Like, just this very last second.

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 11:22 (twenty-two years ago)

that's a nice watch

― chris (chris), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 11:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Sorry, I gotta put a picture of it up cause I'm so stoked:

http://www.fossil.com/images/us/local/products/viewlarger/PH1030.jpg

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 11:27 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm sorry, but there is an argument for not wearing watches right there!!

― Pinkpanther (Pinkpanther), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 11:47 (twenty-two years ago)

― Dan I., Wednesday, 7 January 2004 12:01 (twenty-two years ago)

I think it's Dandy

― chris (chris), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 12:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Sorry, if it makes you feel any better, I have a storm watch!
x-post

― Pinkpanther (Pinkpanther), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 12:03 (twenty-two years ago)

i used to have a Casio digital watch that you could sort of transform into a robot

― stevem (blueski), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 12:35 (twenty-two years ago)

"sort of transform into a robot" = "break" obv

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 12:40 (twenty-two years ago)

yes there were lots of gimmicky digital watches, e.g. the calculator watch which was naff cos the rubber keys used to fall out so you had to use the tip of yr compass instead to press the metal below. And the Simon watch with the four coloured buttons in the corners for playing the popular light and sound memory game of that name.

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 12:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Am I the only one here who is decidedly anti-watch?

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 12:41 (twenty-two years ago)

I haven't worn a watch for years, Tuomas, despite my only very-recent mobile-having status. I found that eventually they just stopped working.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 12:43 (twenty-two years ago)

that's when you put a new battery in TH

― chris (chris), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 12:44 (twenty-two years ago)

i'd like a monacle with the time displayed in the corner. now *that* would be stylish.

― colette (a2lette), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 12:46 (twenty-two years ago)

wrist watches are very uncomfortable so I don't have one. don't have a mobile but there are watches most places I go so not much need.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 12:47 (twenty-two years ago)

odd watch battery story: I have had my Casio digital watch since 1982 (it is therefore nearly as old as some of my colleagues).

first battery: 1982-90
second: 1990-98
third: 1998-2001
fourth: 2001-present

wtf? I wasn't expecting to replace the third battery until *at least* 2006, speshly when you consider that I used the stopwatch and the light far more when I was a kid than in latter years.

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 12:48 (twenty-two years ago)

batteries are a conspiracy, as i always maintained

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 12:55 (twenty-two years ago)

The way your dad looked at it, this watch was your birthright. He'd be damned if any of the slopes were gonna get their greasy yellow hands on his boy's birthright. So he hid it in the one place he knew he could hide something: his ass. Five long years, he wore this watch up his ass. Then when he died of dysentery, he gave me the watch. I hid this uncomfortable piece of metal up my ass for two years. Then, after seven years, I was sent home to my family. And now, little man, I give the watch to you.

― Chris V (Chris V), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 13:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Pocket watches vs. ass watches: fite!

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 13:19 (twenty-two years ago)

Mobile phones don't just display the time, they change time. They make time flexible, negotiable. Once -- in the 'age of the watch' -- people would have to make an appointment and keep it or be cast into a firey furnace for wasting their friends' time. Now, people say 'Let's meet, I'll call you nearer the time.' The appointment becomes elastic, and depends on negotiated contingencies. Further negotiations are always possible, postponements acceptable. All these flexitimers throwing away their watches are replacing rigid time with bendy time. The watch melted, just as Dali foresaw!

It actually infuriates me, I think it belongs to the age of spin. We'll tell you what you want to hear, in order to stay popular with you, but then we'll wriggle and bend and melt and do what suits us. We will not keep (election, appointment) promises. In fact, we won't even make any.

I like that performance piece Dieter Meier did, when he announced that, ten years hence, he would be at a particular spot in Zurich. I'm sure he was there, and didn't phone in to reschedule. I also like Eno's Project of the Long Now, a plan to make a 10,000 clock that will tell (and toll with bells) the time no matter how much we change technology, mess around, or mess things up. It's a challenge for a society given more and more to flexitime and flexipromises.

― Momus (Momus), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 13:20 (twenty-two years ago)

Momus you ponce.

― Markelby (Mark C), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 13:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Momus you ponce.

Pistols at 6.43am in Hyde Park! If you're even a minute late I won't be there!

― Momus (Momus), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 13:23 (twenty-two years ago)

I think Momus has point. I miss the times when you could phone your friends on wednesday, and say: "Let's meet at X o'clock in the Y pub on friday", and everybody would be there, and we'd spend the whole night together. Nowadays, thanks to mobiles, all such decisions are delayed until the last minute, and even when we meet at a pub, anyone could at any time get a call from someone else who'll invite her to a better party, or to hang out with better people. Human relations have become somewhat less stable because of mobiles. I live in the country with the largest amount of mobiles per capita, so I know...

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 13:31 (twenty-two years ago)

mental note: never use mobile phone as excuse to ditch Tuomas.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 13:36 (twenty-two years ago)

Sorry, I actually didn't mean anything nasty by that, Momus, I was just being a dumbass. But that's the second duel I've been challenged to on ILX - can anyone beat that?

― Markelby (Mark C), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 13:37 (twenty-two years ago)

flexitime rools U R all Luddites

― stevem (blueski), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 13:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Melt that man down!

― Momus (Momus), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 13:56 (twenty-two years ago)

The solution to rubber watchbands is what, those pleated gold metal bands that you see actors like Joe Pesci wear? Those things will PINCH your skin and PULL your arm hair like nothing else as you stretch it around your wrist.

Pleated gold metal bands. Yes, like Whitesnake. Exactly.

― Pleasant Plains (Pleasant Plains), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 17:48 (twenty-two years ago)

"I think Momus has point. I miss the times when you could phone your friends on wednesday, and say: "Let's meet at X o'clock in the Y pub on friday", and everybody would be there, and we'd spend the whole night together. Nowadays, thanks to mobiles, all such decisions are delayed until the last minute, and even when we meet at a pub, anyone could at any time get a call from someone else who'll invite her to a better party, or to hang out with better people. Human relations have become somewhat less stable because of mobiles. I live in the country with the largest amount of mobiles per capita, so I know..."

OT fucking M

Add in Forums/IM/Blogs and we all know where everyone is at anytime.

Makes me want to go camping sans mobile.

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 17:59 (twenty-two years ago)

first battery: 1982-90
second: 1990-98
third: 1998-2001
fourth: 2001-present

goes to show it takes a lot more effort to keep up with the time in the modern information age.

― ken c (ken c), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 18:06 (twenty-two years ago)

I am in agreement with Momus's bendy time theory, and with Toumas as well. I see less of my friends than I used to before we all got mobiles, primarily because no-one makes an effort to schedule outings anymore. We all figure that, if we feel like hanging out, we can call each other at the appropriate time--but no-one ever wants to come out on such a spur of the moment anymore. Rarely can I call someone and say 'hey, meet me at the bar in 20 minutes' and have them agree to show up. However, we all tend to act as though mobiles can allow us to socialize whenever we like.

― webcrack (music=crack), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 18:07 (twenty-two years ago)

I was always anti-watch, but I wore one for about a year in college when I had a lot of time between classes and really had to be on top of that sort of thing.

I stopped wearing one the day I got my cell phone. For one thing, it provides many opportunities to use the ever-so-cool casual flip and close action (non-flip phones=dud).

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 20:39 (twenty-two years ago)

"10,000 clock that will tell (and toll with bells) the time"

10 000 WHAT clock - 10 000 dollar, 10 000 ft tall, 10 000 kg?

In other news, I like my watch and have no cell phone (behind the times).

― isadora (isadora), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 20:52 (twenty-two years ago)

i've got slack at wearing watches.. and then today i discovered my watch lying in a corner.. the batteries dead. i'm not sure how i feel about it.

― searchanddelete, Wednesday, 7 January 2004 20:57 (twenty-two years ago)

(sub-question: what do people make of starck watches?)

― cozen (Cozen), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 20:59 (twenty-two years ago)

searchanddelete: that means it's broken

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 21:01 (twenty-two years ago)

This is my watch. It makes me happy.

http://www.yotawatchworks.com/images/Radio/RY_watch_rollovers/RY_watches_all/crosleyORANGE.jpg

― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 21:39 (twenty-two years ago)

That is a very very cool watch.

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 23:17 (twenty-two years ago)

10000 year.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 8 January 2004 09:38 (twenty-two years ago)

It would have taken less time to click my link to the Project of the Long Now to find out what 10,000 units the clock used rather than copy and paste the typo... But time is not everything.

― Momus (Momus), Thursday, 8 January 2004 16:37 (twenty-two years ago)

I fear what would happen to my social grup if I finally got a mobile, because it would square the circle and we would never see anyone any more.

Actually i am still pretty firm on the organising going out thing. Hence the steering committee.

― Pete (Pete), Thursday, 8 January 2004 16:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Am I the only person whose mobile phone DOESN'T have a clock on it?

I barely use it any more actually even for telephonic purposes, largely because it's RUB; but I am also another one who longs for the age of fixed arrangements. And if you're going to be late, you find a phone box.

― Archel (Archel), Thursday, 8 January 2004 16:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Thinking back on the pocket watch and the way train conductors used them... The standarized (and hopefully synchronized) time measurement system became very important in negotiating increasingly demanding time/space relationships. Timing a time to a physical proximity helped to make sure trains don't collide. But, not just trains of course. Business meetings, package delivery, bus schedules, etc all relied on time synchronization COMBINED with physical proximity to function properly. Given cellphones, Internet, communications technology, etc, how much is time being divorced from physical proximity? Where is measured time as a technology used in negotiation less necessary and where is it more necessary?

― Dale the Titled (cprek), Thursday, 8 January 2004 17:10 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh yes, I also love watches because they are the first mechanical devices ever to be assimilated to the human body. Mechanical need tending (winding) consistently like one would wash their face or comb their hair. Almost like an 1800s tamagochi (sp?). I care about my watch because I have to care for it. Of course this is not the case for digital watches anymore, so maybe that's why they're not cared for as much.

That being said, I have a Casio Data Bank 150 calculator watch that I love.

― Dale the Titled (cprek), Thursday, 8 January 2004 17:13 (twenty-two years ago)

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