The times when people relied on their wristwatch or pocket watch to tell the time are long gone. Nowadays time is displayed everywhere, in smartphones, smartwatches, laptops and tablets, on the metro station, even on the dashboard of your car. In a world filled with high definition screens, time telling is being offered generously amidst a ton of other information. If people could predict this huge leap of progress in technology a hundred years ago, they would be sure to think their watches useless in such a world. This is not the case though. Analog watches are as popular as ever in the digital world we are leaving in. But what leads to the ongoing survival - if not thriving - of a device that apart from some other features of limited scale like date displaying, the only thing it offers is time telling?
As mentioned above watches are just not necessary anymore to know the time. They are much more than that. It is a personality statement, and more so than any other accessory that can be worn. The watch being worn offers a glimpse at it's wearers personality. It can be a rugged 100$ Casio G-Shock or a classy 8000$ Rolex Submariner. Both serve the same purpose: tell the time, just in a very different style.
The greatest nemesis of wristwatches are none other than the single device no one leaves their home without in 2018 and which of course also displays time: their smartphone. But using the smartphone to tell the time is like using a pocket watch, the fore-bearer of wristwatches. People had been there a hundred years ago and they chose to move to wristwatches for the simple reason that they were way more practical.
Digital displays of time may be easier to read but they are also more stressful. They tell you the time is such an easy way to comprehend, down to the individual second that people feel as if every moment of their lives is being counted and gone forever, forfeited. Analog watches on the other hand offer a display of time much more traditional and one which emphasizes not the moments past but the continuous flow of time.
Wristwatches have become much more than what they were intended to become when they were first made. They are not only valuable, utility tools to tell the time but also a fashion and personality statement, an anchor to a world less stressful than the digital one and also heirlooms which can't really be compared to digital tools that tell the time but will be considered outdated a year after their purchase.
