Against Smartwatches

Here's Why The Watch Snob Thinks Smartwatches Are A Dumb Idea

For reasons that I don't pretend to understand, I was asked some time ago, by those who are pleased to call themselves the editors of AskMen.com, to offer some observations on the so-called smartwatch, which is rather like asking — oh, shall we say, Cristóbal Balenciaga — to expound upon the timeless elegance of the disposable nappy, but so be it. I confess, I'd actually no idea what the damned things were until the query came across the transom, and I had to go ask Sheamus (who is hopelessly devoted to being technologically au courant) what the hell a “smart watch” is supposed to be.

To his credit, he managed to emerge from his usual state of inebriate dissolution long enough to explain to me — to the extent he could — what they are, or rather, what they aspire to be. As near as I can understand the matter, a smartwatch is an electronic device that you strap on your wrist; they apparently run for a day or so, at best, before the battery goes flat; and they supposedly tell you what your smart phone is doing without your having to trouble to reach into your trouser pocket. And then, it seems, to actually do anything, you must reach into your trouser pocket.

People who care about such things are said to be absolutely agog over what I have been informed (somewhat unreliably — this is Sheamus, after all) is going to be the Next Big Thing, and there are even those who say that the smartwatch will completely supplant the poor mechanical wristwatch. He kept saying, "wearable tech," which sounds about as appealing as having a typewriter riveted to your pelvis.

It is my devout wish that this piece of utter silliness would be seen for the unbelievably bad idea that it is and that men and women of goodwill resist the further intrusion of gadgets into our lives. I am old enough to remember a time when people walked down the street, or drove their cars, and otherwise went about their business without feeling a constant, anhedonic itch to take (awful) pictures and share them constantly, or to chatter to each other like so many semiliterate magpies via text messages, or to engage in the preening, vacuous narcissism — so-called "social media" — that has enabled feckless youths, spots still in vibrant bloom upon their chins, to become wealthy beyond the wildest dreams of Croesus.

Smartwatches — good gods preserve us; isn't the smartphone enough of a blight? It has taken the art of conversation, set upon it in a dark alley, throttled it until inert, and dumped its sad remains into a pit of quicklime, and we are all the worse for it. Public streets have become displays of somnambulistic self-absorption, with pedestrians auto-hypnotized into utter obliviousness, not only to their surroundings and fellows, but often to mortal danger from motorists just as poorly attentive to the task at hand as those on foot. And now, companies whose products have long since overstepped the bounds of utility and service to their owners and become parasites that serve everyone's interests but those of the people who carry them, wish to add yet another superfluous, expensive, useless, troublesome and inherently obsolete object to the menagerie.

Fortunately, there is hope — not from the lowing herds of potential owners, but from the inherent idiocy of the idea itself — and make no mistake, the idea is fundamentally, incurably, terminally flawed. For all that they may seem appealing, a smartwatch, given the dimensions of the human wrist, can never offer sufficient visual and tactile interest to do any more than be the handmaiden of the phone to which it is tethered. It is, in a word, an expensive and unnecessary accessory, and from the few I could bring myself to look at, usually ugly enough to drop a donkey pulling a dung-cart at a hundred yards.

A fine watch, too is unnecessary, but the latter appeals for reasons that are utterly divorced from the rationale trotted out for the smartwatch — indeed, as far as I can understand the matter, there is no rationale for the smartwatch, other than to satisfy the ill-disguised greed of its makers. The unnecessary but beautiful is one thing; the unnecessary and wasteful, senseless, and ugly, yet another. I raise, in my solitary splendor, a glass of heather-scented whisky to the wish that these ghastly monstrosities will, like hideous worms purged from their unhappy hosts, die the quick death that they deserve.