my name is mwd

As someone who can’t wear a watch, and hasn’t done for a long time, I’ve been mostly unaware of things relating to smart watches, but one thing I have found interesting as an outsider is that they actually appear quite rude based on existing social norms.

Several times recently I’ve been chatting to someone with a smart watch, and from time to time they’ll get a notification to the watch, and look at it. However, as an outsider, it just looks like they’re glancing at the time on their watch, which implies strongly they’re bored of the conversation and wish I’d wind it up and move on (which when I pointed this out, the people in question vigorously denied, though you never know).

With smart phones, whilst checking on notifications can be rude depending on context, in the cases above I’d not have raised an eyebrow. But because we associate the checking of a watch so strongly with measuring the passage of time, it comes across much worse with a smart watch.

It’ll be interesting to see if over time we adjust to this new cause for an old gesture.