Until I bought a voice-enabled one, I couldn’t figure out what the fuss about smart watches was. Sure, activity trackers, that’s a whole thing. I don’t do it, but I get it. Maybe it’s that. In recent years, expensive watches has supplanted other expensive stuff with low daily utility for our conspicuous consumption status. Artisanal hatchets, handmade local bicycle bags, and katanas are out, okay, whatever.
Or maybe people just like watches. I get that too. I liked watches when I was a kid; I just thought they were cool. Especially digital ones, but any would do. My mom would buy me the very cheapest ones they had at Woolco, $1.99 or so. They don’t last long with a 7 year old. Apple products people go nuts for. I only just got a smart watch because you can now use Siri directly on the device via wake word, without the phone and over the cellular network, so it’s to test and analyze the device and experience, but I’m a special case. Apple made digital watches cool again. Okay. Is that it?
No, this week I noticed a trend that could not be coincidence. And while I’m sure all of the above play some part in this general effect, the actual reason why watches are so perennially popular is more basic and primal. It comes straight from the amigdala, your lizard brain sometimes driving the action and other times retreating: a watch allows you to control social interactions.
I’m kicking off two major projects, both with a bunch of stakeholders, one with many teams contributing and needing to sign off on what we do, so I have had many one-on-one meetings in the past couple of weeks. My natural tendency is to attempt to follow any discussion to its natural conclusion, but when you have back to back meetings, you just can’t do this. Agenda, discussion points, summary, action items.
I was never this type before, but respecting my teammates’ and stakeholders’ time, I got in the habit of setting alarms at wrap up time. Set to silent but with haptic feedback, the device makes an unmissable buzz on the top of your wrist that vibrates gently through your flesh and bones. It’s hard to ignore, and so I would involuntarily bring my wrist toward my line of sight to check and dismiss the alarm.
You can’t hear it, but I noticed that when I would shake the watch free from the cuff of my shirt, bend my elbow and raise it to eye level, they would stop talking. At first I would make eye contact to see if there was a reason why they’d trailed off mid-sentence, and they would always be looking right at me. Not annoyed, not surprised, no judgement. Once we’d made eye contact again, they’d resume where they trailed off.
Noticing that made me notice that any other time I raised my watch, people would watch as I looked at my watch. Usually this would be a polite observation, a glance in my general direction and continuing their thought as I quickly check the time during our discussion. Occasonally their cadence would shift, slowing ever so slightly and stretching out a syllable or two until they were satisfied I wasn’t reading a message or calling Starfleet Mission Control.
If you are wearing a watch, without saying a word, you can control when people speak. Effectively you can control conversations. Because this is built into social convention, that it’s generally okay to look at one’s own watch under most circumstances, people who are actually paying attention to you when you’re having a conversation will observe this and shift their behavior accordingly.
It is allowed without explanation. You don’t have to ask, or explain. If you combine the raising of the wrist with a dismissing of a notification or alarm, or make a motion to stand, you can end a conversation, change the venue, or force it to its end. What’s more is this response it not rational. Social cues are learned, but they are ingrained. We do them as needed in response to general social situations. They’re automatic. We not only don’t think about them, we have to actually work pretty hard to not do these things.
Having a watch is powerful then. So powerful that after I noticed these two types of behavior, and identified the one meta them, I decided to watch my own behavior and make an attempt to avoid overt looking at my watch unless absolutely necessary. It turns out you have to be pretty subtle about this: people will watch your eyes moving and adjust accordingly when they see you looking or even just your eyes moving in the direction of the watch.
This made me totally get the other new feature of the latest generation of the Apple watch: The watch face is visible at all times, not just when you’re looking at it or you touch it or press a button. This is critical because it makes the time or even notifications glanceable. Effectively, this reduces the friction for modifying the behavior of others. It makes controlling another person’s behavior, even a whole room, as simple as a glance.
So how’s the voice feature?
Eh it’s alright. Works better with the headphones.
But the real draw is the watch part.