News Commentary – What Happened to the Wrist Watch?
On Sundays I offer comments on some of the most interesting information technology stories that I have found on the web that week. Please feel free to join in the discussion or suggest stories during the week.
Today’s news story is all about watches… it is another set of stories concerning the shifts that have occurred due to the transition from the industrial to the information age. I found two opposing stories this week that tell the tale.
On one hand, we have a story about the future of watch making.
StyleCrave: 10 Watches that Shape the Future of Modern Watchmaking
“The techniques of luxury watch design can be as intricate and delicate as those of a precision automobile, albeit on a much smaller scale. From crystal to carbon fiber, diamond to gold, the materials and make of today’s luxury watches spare no expense to achieve perfection.”
On the other, we have one about how nobody is wearing watches any longer.
Hampton Roads Pilot: Is the cell phone killing the wristwatch?
“In the age of the cell phone, is time running out for the wristwatch?
Charlie Wollman thinks so. The New Jersey teenager doesn’t own a watch. To tell time, he pulls out his wireless phone or glances at public clocks…
“It’s definitely true that we’re seeing a decline in the number of watches sold to younger people,” said Louis Galie, senior vice president for technology at Timex , the top U.S. watchmaker. He said fewer young people wear watches today than five years ago.”
Have you been to a mall lately? The next time that you do, take a look at people’s wrists. I think that you will see exactly the same shift that is described above. I see watches on people who are about 35 and older and almost never on people who are younger. There seems to be almost no difference in the occurrence based upon gender either. The reasoning seems pretty simple to me. Having access to accurate time is needed for success in life today. Life is just too fast in the information age to be without time. That is why everyone has a clock. The issue is that for people who grew up before cell phones were prevalent all valued and wore wrist watches. The generation that was given a cell phone at about age eleven and have had one on their person ever since meet that need with the clock there or on their iPod.
My IT Thought of the Days is to agree that wrist watches have become redundant tools in the information age. Their future appears, from the article above, to be firmly tied to fashion trends, and not technology, usability, practicality, or functionality. The battle is over, form won over function in watches. I guess that I will stop wearing one, too, unless it matches my outfit!
That is my Information Technology Thought of the Day (ITTOD) for September 27, 2009 by Scott Coughlin
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Gen-Y doesn’t wear watches…well known trend…but good luck using your cell phone or i-Pod in a fighter cockpit or secure/classified space.
Interestingly, my 18 year old stepson, who has never owned a watch and refused to see the need, just bought one.
He’s in the Corps of Cadets at Virginia Tech. Punctuality is now critical to him, when it was not before…and the cell phone not always available…just like cellphones are not always a good idea in the field, cockpit or bridge…