Why I won’t buy an Apple Watch (for now)
Courtesy Apple
Constantly checking your wrist watch is less rude and less distracting than constantly checking your smartphone. It might even improve your life.
Or so says a report from Wired on why Apple chose to manufacture the forthcoming iWatch, which serves as a second, more accessible screen for your iPocket, I mean iPhone.
“Your phone is ruining your life,” writes David Pierce, who, like many others, ignorantly blames the object instead of the abuser. Rather than setting boundaries on his technology, Pierce and others like him egotistically search for reasons to be elsewhere in thought and suffer the consequence.
“But what if you could create a device that could filter out all the bullshit and instead only serve you truly important information?” he continues, again failing to realize that he can already “filter out all the bullshit,” but instead chooses not to—either because he doesn’t know how to turn off notifications and avoid distracting apps, or his ego won’t let him. “So after three-plus decades of building devices that grab and hold our attention—the longer the better—Apple has decided that the way forward is to fight back.”
I’ll believe it when I see it.
Early statements from Apple aren’t encouraging. Company big wig Kevin Lynch tells the magazine that watch-gazing is “a little more human, a little more in the moment when you’re with somebody.”
No, it’s not. Looking someone in the eye is the more human thing to do. Avoiding distractions and understanding that “timing is everything” is how we prioritize the moment. That’s how we improve life.
In other words, we are not powerless and phones or their successors are not to blame. When used properly, handheld Internets radically enhance our communication, commerce, information, logistics, culture, art, decision-making, and leisure. They improve life.
They’re also the most powerful tool non-royalty has ever possessed. And power corrupts, which makes setting boundaries on it difficult. Even for people like me who don’t use social media, follow strict guidelines, and avoid apps until proven useful, the allure of “on-demand anything” is always there. The appetite is bottomless. But it can be quelled—with or without a smart watch.
Until Apple (or any other wearable computing company) gives me a convincing reason to “upgrade,” I say this: no, thanks.