The joy of convergent devices

[andrewducker]

[Poll #1629186]

Comments

[dougs.livejournal.com]

My two answers to the second question each refer to the same device.

[andrewducker]

I knew I should have made this radio buttons!

[makyo.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine recently mused on the evolutionary cycle of portable timepieces:

1. Pocket watch that you take out of your pocket, and have to press a button to find out the time.
2. Pocket watch that you take out of your pocket, and just look at to find out the time.
3. Wristwatch that you just look at to find out the time.
4. Mobile phone that you take out of your pocket, and just look at to find out the time.
5. Mobile phone that you take out of your pocket, and have to press a button to find out the time.

I have both options 3 and 5 open to me, but typically choose the former because it's much less bother.

[andrewducker]

Yeah - it's not enough bother for me to actually wear a watch in addition to me carrying a phone, but it's occasionally a bother.

[darkoshi]

I almost always wear a watch while out and about, but not while at home, and certainly not while sleeping. So technically my answer to the first question would be No, but I'm not sure if that is what is being asked.

[andrewducker]

Change "most" to be "most of the time when I am out of the house" if that makes it easier.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

also, clock in my car and just generally keeping track in my head

[andrewducker]

Car would be "some other technological means at my disposal"

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

I feel so old. I just had to unpack our family tent because I left my watch in it the last time we went camping, and have been suffering without it ever since. I don't know how people cope just using their phones. I check my watch several times a day in circumstances where I could not possibly check the time on a phone. Eg meetings, where it would be blindingly rude to look at the time on the phone but the watch is right there.

[andrewducker]

All of our meeting rooms have clocks on the wall. Presumably in order to encourage people not to go on and on until everyone dies of old age. This is not entirely successful.

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

My watch very rarely runs out of battery. The same is not true of my phone.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

What amuses me is that in 1950s scifi, the device that had all the wizardry was a watch: it let you talk to people, zap aliens, etc. Now it's a phone.

[dougs.livejournal.com]

I look forward to the time when I can have 1024x768 pixels on my wrist.

[onceupon.livejournal.com]

I haven't worn a watch on a regular basis since the late 90s.

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

I could tell the time from my phone, but it's quicker and easier to just glance at my wrist.

I always wear a watch unless in bed/shower/bath or lounging around the house. Have done since I can remember. Occasionally I forget to put it on and go out. As soon as I realise it isn't there, it feels odd. I can't explain why, it has nothing to do with knowing the time, it just feels weird.

[andrewducker]

I used to feel that way. And thus used to wear a watch, even when lounging around the house, in the shower, or the bath.

It took me a while to get used to it when I stopped.

[eatsoylentgreen.livejournal.com]

should also be option "I don't go out and about"

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

Watches fail on me - they stop working, very very quickly, no matter how cheap or expensive. No idea why. And I refuse to own a mobile phone (I dislike any synchronous communication, such as IMs or telephones). So I either have to not keep track of time or I look at public clocks.

[laplor.livejournal.com]

If you're like my brother, mobile phones might fail you as quickly. He has never been able to wear any kind of device and keep it functioning. His best result every was a very nice pocket watch, but even that died.

Our best theory so far is that it's because he's a left-handed machinist so is probably banging them around without realizing it.

[dpolicar]

The most common answer is I don't keep track... or, more precisely, I keep a rough approximation of track in my head.

Most of the time it just doesn't matter what time it is; I'm doing what I'm doing and when I'm done doing that it will be time to do the next thing. Sure, having some notion of whether it's dinnertime or bedtime is important, but knowing whether it's 8:15 or 9:32 really isn't.

On occasions where it does matter, I check my phone.

[19-crows.livejournal.com]

I wear a watch partly to tell time and partly because I like the way it looks. I have several watches that are red or interesting looking in other ways. Also, I have trouble telling time on a dial and trust a digital timepiece more.

[poisonduk.livejournal.com]

Haven't you done this poll before?

[andrewducker]

Yes. I thought it was aaaaages ago, but it turns out to only be a year ago.

Damn.

[dapperscavenger.livejournal.com]

At work, I use the computer at work.

While out, I look at the time on printed shopping receipts. So, I can check every time I leave a store, be it Starbucks or C&A.

[andrewducker]

And when you need to know the time, you have an excuse to buy something!

[errolwi.livejournal.com]

Some days (when I am at an event where my primary activity is photography), it's easier to the 3 button press on my DSLR than remember which pocket the iPhone is in.

[ladysisyphus.livejournal.com]

I don't know if 'I look at my laptop screen' counts, not because it doesn't tell me the time, but because I don't generally think of it as being an 'out and about' time-telling device; I'm in my office at the university now, which I suppose technically means I'm out and about, but if my computer is set up enough that I can see the time display, I'm not moving around.

...Unless, of course, I'm on a train -- and I also spend a lot of time staring at the digital displays that tell me exactly how many minutes late my train is going to be.

[erindubitably.livejournal.com]

[X] THE SUN

[andrewducker]

Damn you outdoorsy people and your leet skillz!

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

I wear a watch if out at a club because I don't take my phone to a club.

At work I don't need a watch because there's no reason to have one on the journey there/back, and at work there is a clock on my computer and several on the wall.

If wandering around town, I'll either have my phone on me, or else I won't need to know what time it is. If I'm just wandering around town and not seeing a film or meeting anyone, I don't really need to know what time it is so don't need to carry a way to tell the time.

[robling-t.livejournal.com]

Well, I used to check my portable audio device, but the first day of a job where I was using it for that, it went through the wash in my work-shirt, and now I'm depending on the Kindness of Strangers until I can replace it... {sigh}

[nmg.livejournal.com]

Before I got a mobile phone, I used to rely on bus tickets to tell the time.

Think about it: I normally needed to know the time when I was travelling somewhere and needed to arrive by a particular time, and I was usually travelling by bus. Buy a bus ticket (or a train ticket, for that matter), and you get the time printed on it free of charge! How ace is that?

Of course, it occurs to me that I'm merely describing a slightly more recent version of this:

[bemused-leftist.livejournal.com]

But how do you catch the bus?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Other: My car.

I have one or more of my laptop, my phone, my desktop, my car, my home wall clock, my stove clock, or my bedside alarm clock within reach at basically all times.

Why would I wear a watch?

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

I have an innate sense of time, WHERE'S MY OPTION?!

[mair_in_grenderich]

I squint at other people's watches and look for church/etc clocks and I generally have a good idea of the time, unless I'm out in the countryside for hours.

[mair_in_grenderich]

I used to have one of those watches that you wear round your neck. It was green and bubble shaped but very clear and it was awesome, and I had a green plastic loop for it. Then (in 1999) it broke and I never found another awesome green bubble necklace watch so I stopped wearing one.