Watches bug me. I have two; one that costs too much and another, cheap calculator/geek watch that I wear when required. But the as soon as I get my shoes off, the watch and wallet follow.

When I forget to wear my watch - which is often - it’s never a problem because my iPod and cell phone know the time. My car knows the time, there are little clocks on just about everything. The last thing I really need is something strapped to my body to do the same thing.

Yet a while back, prescient tech-guru Bill Gates was all atwitter over the possibility of an internet watch to get the news, sports scores, stock numbers and Brittany’s husband count. Microsoft actually introduced an expensive watch that does this, but only a few overpaid gear-sluts bothered with it.

And once again, Bills grasp of the future, like his awareness of the present is called into question and academics and researchers discover that watches have become no more than jewelry for the compulsive.

Watches lose Gorund to Cell Phones
Market researchers say more people are carrying electronic devices that also tell time, whether a phone, an iPod or a BlackBerry. They’re also finding that young people, in particular, are more interested in spending their money on other kinds of accessories, such as shoes and hand bags.

In a survey last fall, investment bank Piper Jaffray & Co. found that nearly two-thirds of teens never wear a watch — and only about one in 10 wears one every day.

…while Americans spent more than $5.9 billion on watches in 2006, that figure
was down 17 percent when compared with five years earlier.

This is about more than watches, the lock-step synchronization of the work force is being eroded my technology. As distance disappears on the internet, so does time. The need for every one to be somewhere and be there at the same time has diminished, so the need to have a dedicatedly piece of hardware is also disappearing.

There’s still a pathology about time though that has yet to be beaten down. People  all go to lunch at noon then complain about the crowds. The primary reason why traffic is bad in most areas is because everyone is going someplace at the same

Even when holding my cellphone I’ll still look at my wrist when I need to know the time. we have a little ways to go yet to be free of the shackles of time.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 19th, 2007 at 7:45 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.