Picture this: I’m sitting in a coffee shop, waiting for an interview source who’s running late. The woman at the next table glances at her wrist, notes the time, and returns to her book. No phone check, no notification scan, just a quick flick of the eyes downward. Meanwhile, the guy across from me pulls out his phone to check the time and gets lost in it for the next ten minutes. By the time he looks up, his coffee’s cold.
That simple observation got me thinking about something I’d noticed but never really examined: the people who still wear watches seem to have a fundamentally different relationship with time. Not better or worse necessarily, but distinctly different. And as I dug into the psychology behind this choice, what I found surprised me.
The watch becomes a statement when everyone stops wearing one
When smartphones made watches functionally obsolete, something interesting happened. As Bill Prince, editor of GQ Watch And Jewellery, explains it: “A watch was merely a watch, until mobile phones arrived, whereupon it was assigned many more attributes, not least the ability to define the wearer’s taste and social standing.”
Think about that for a moment. The less we needed watches for their original purpose, the more they started to mean something else entirely. They transformed from tools into choices, from necessities into declarations.
I started paying attention to who wears watches in my own circles. My friend who runs a startup and guards his focus like a precious resource? Watch wearer. The colleague who never seems frazzled despite managing multiple responsibilities? Watch wearer. The neighbor who somehow finds time to train for marathons while working full-time? You guessed it.
This isn’t about wealth or status. Half the watch wearers I know sport simple Timex or Casio models. It’s about something more subtle: a conscious decision about how to interact with time itself.
Single-purpose devices create different mental boundaries
Here’s what fascinated me most in the research: a study found that individuals who use analogue timekeepers like wristwatches and alarm clocks tend to use their smartphones less, suggesting that these devices may help reduce digital media overuse.
Let that sink in. The simple act of checking time on your wrist instead of your phone might actually protect you from the rabbit hole of notifications, emails, and endless scrolling.
I tested this myself recently. Every time I reached for my phone just to check the time, I made a tally mark in my notebook. Twenty-three times in one day. Twenty-three opportunities to get sucked into something else entirely. And sure enough, about half those times, I did exactly that. A time check became an email check became a news scan became fifteen minutes gone.
The watch creates what I’ve come to think of as a “clean transaction” with time. You look, you see, you move on. There’s no notification badge tempting you, no preview of a message making you curious, no algorithmic feed waiting to capture your attention. Just the time, nothing more, nothing less.
The physical gesture changes how we process time
Research has demonstrated that the perception of time is dynamically interlocked with facial muscle activity, suggesting that our bodily states can influence how we perceive time. This got me thinking about the physical differences between checking a watch versus a phone.
Watch checking is almost meditative in its simplicity. A slight turn of the wrist, a downward glance, done. Phone checking requires multiple micro-decisions: pull it out, wake the screen, maybe unlock it, resist other apps, put it back. Each step is a potential fork in the road.
I’ve noticed this with my partner and me. Since we started leaving our phones in another room during dinner (after too many evenings lost to “just checking one thing”), we’ve become hyperaware of how differently we engage with time. Without the phone as a crutch, we’re more present, more patient. Time seems to slow down in the best possible way.
Intentional inefficiency as a form of resistance
A Depop spokesperson noted something that really resonated: “In a world where most of us are glued to our phones, an analogue watch exudes a steady familiarity and classic style that blends both fashion and functionality.”
That phrase “steady familiarity” captures something essential. In our race toward maximum efficiency, we’ve perhaps lost something important: the value of doing things the slightly harder way when it serves a greater purpose.
I still keep a physical notebook for first drafts and interview notes even though it’s inefficient. My handwriting is terrible, searching through pages takes forever, and I can’t back it up to the cloud. But that friction is precisely the point. It forces me to slow down, to be more deliberate with my thoughts.
Watch wearing operates on the same principle. Sure, your phone tells time more accurately, adjusts automatically for daylight savings, and never needs winding. But maybe that’s not the point. Maybe the point is creating intentional boundaries between different technologies and their purposes.
Time perception remains deeply personal
What struck me most in researching this piece was how research indicates that time perception is inherently subjective and can be influenced by attentional and emotional states, highlighting the complex mechanisms of how we experience time.
In other words, how we choose to track time might actually influence how we experience it. The watch wearer who glances at their wrist experiences a different temporal rhythm than the phone checker who gets pulled into digital quicksand multiple times per hour.
I think about this during my long walks when I need to work through a complicated piece. No podcasts, no audiobooks, just me and my thoughts. My best ideas happen during these tech-free windows, when time becomes elastic and my mind can wander freely. Would I have the same experience if I were constantly pulling out my phone to check how long I’d been walking? I doubt it.
Final thoughts
After weeks of observing and thinking about this, I’ve come to believe that watch wearing in 2024 isn’t about rejecting technology or living in the past. It’s about being intentional with our attention, creating boundaries that protect our focus, and maintaining a relationship with time that isn’t mediated by algorithms and notifications. The people still wearing watches haven’t been left behind; they’ve made a conscious choice about what to carry forward. They’ve recognized that sometimes, the most advanced technology is the one that does exactly what you need, nothing more, and doesn’t ask for your attention in return.
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