The first wristwatches were a flop.

Called bracelet watches, they were seen as a rather unseemly replacement for the pocketwatch, a more discreet means of keeping track of the time. Though mass-produced versions first emerged in the 1880s, it wasn't until 1927 that U.S.-made wristwatches finally outstripped sales of their entrenched competitor. It took a combination of European styling and World War I machismo—wristwatches were indispensable to flying aces and army officers—for them to overcome pocket-favoring social norms stretching back decades.

Well into the 20th century, some of the old attitudes persisted. "The action of looking at the time is perceived as a serious infringement of the most elementary conventions of polite society," was the attitude of one mid-century watch-disser, according to a recent Time article. But the pace of life was picking up. Time became standardized. Radio and telephone and then TV networks connected us in new ways. Punch cards and factory jobs were the new normal. We needed a more immediate way of checking the time. So we put it on our wrists.

With the Apple Watch, Tim Cook and company are now hoping to push us through a similar social revolution. And because that's such an enormous task, it too may be a flop—at least initially. Alexis McCrossen, a Southern Methodist University professor and author of a book on the history of clocks and watches, believes that, much like the original wristwatch, it has too much to overcome.

"They're making two bets," she says of Apple. One bet is that people want bigger screens and more visible access to information, she explains, and that's why the iPhone 6 is bigger. But then the company has hedged that bet with Apple Watch, in case people are more interested in having information on them at all times. "But the thing is," she says, "your iPhone can be on you all the time too."

The mobile phone has made us accustomed to, if not happy with, hearing one-side of telephone conversations in restaurants and on buses. And we've developed a similarly uneasy relationship with compulsive text-checkers and app users. But the watch brings these devices completely out of the privacy of our pockets and makes them unavoidable.

A text message sends the Apple Watch a-flutter, literally. It lets lovers swap heartbeats and finger-tip squiggles. And it gives us a way to endlessly dial through our Watch apps. It will fuse internet space fully and permanently with our personal space. The Watch doesn't discreetly slide into your pocket when you're watching a movie or dining with a friend. It's always there, and with it, the internet itself.

As much as we love our apps, we love them on our phones, McCrossen says. And she doesn't expect that to change. She asked her history students this week what they thought of the Apple Watch, and the consensus wasn't encouraging. "The question is: Are the other features that the smartwatch presents indispensable to functioning in the modern world?"

Tim Cook sees the new device as "redefining" watches, not phones. But that has been tried so many times before with less than successful results. Back in 1972, the Hamilton Watch Company introduced the $2,100 Pulsar 1—the world's very first electronic watch—with very similar hopes to those swirling around the Apple Watch. But a decade later, most watch-buyers were still expecting the same kind of analog features they'd wanted for years.

The larger point is that the younger generation doesn't wear watches. That certainly the case with McCrosson's students. "Apple Watch will redefine what people expect from a watch," Cook said. But so many of us don't expect anything from our watch. Instead, we expect something from a device that slides into our pocket.

All that said, much like in 1920s, our world is changing a rapid pace, becoming even faster than before. Social norms will continue to evolve, and one day, the internet will be fused with our lives in far more closer ways. The good news for the Apple Watch is that it's much closer to success than another device that seeks to drive a similar revolution. Personal internet integration is also the aim of Google Glass, and Apple seems to be aware of the blowback against the intrusiveness of Google's devices, and goofy bluetooth earpieces. The Apple Watch, for example, is sensitive to motion, and you can set it to turn on only when you raise your arm. It seems that discretely sliding a computer on your wrist is a lot more subtle than slapping one on your face.