I?M 34 YEARS old, and I?m wearing a watch every day for the first time in my life. No, I haven?t discovered the joys of midlife accessorizing. I?ve just finally found something that saves me from my phone.
There?s a pitch for smartwatches you may have heard. It goes something like this: Spend less time on your phone, and more time on your life. Apple, in particular, has built its Watch push on the foundational belief that you want to spend less time staring at your iPhone.
Apple is right! I get the same satisfaction fiddling with my phone that my dog does chewing on professional-grade rawhide. It?s a fun distraction from every day life, but borderline obsessive and ultimately unsatisfying. I also spend entirely too much time doing it, something that?s always been true but never particularly bothered me until I had kids, two of them, and repeatedly found myself deep down an Instagram rabbit hole instead of being a dad. This is not a realization I would recommend to anyone.
The phrasing?s melodramatic, but I sometimes feel like a modern-day Prufrock; instead of coffee spoons, I?ve measured out my life with pulls-to-refresh.
I get the appeal, then, of a smartwatch, which proposes relief through ?glanceable moments? in the form of notification buzzes and information snippets, appetizer portions of a smartphone?s unlimited buffet. I have no doubt that this works for many people, especially those whose emails and Twitter mentions regularly require immediate attention (what must that be like!). Not to mention you can use them for fitness tracking, and they?re probably something to talk about at parties.
Read more at?WIRED
