Why We Still Buy Watches
When every screen tells the time, why do we still wear one on our wrist? The wristwatch has outlasted its original purpose — and become something far more enduring.
The phone lights up before the alarm rings.
The time is there.
So is the weather, today's calendar, overnight messages and tomorrow's reminders.
A few minutes later, before leaving the house, you fasten a watch around your wrist.
You already know the time.
Yet you wear it anyway.
Some objects survive not because they remain necessary, but because they continue to mean something.
Two watches laid out on a summer table — the wristwatch as everyday companion, not just timekeeping device. Photo: 1916 Company
There was a time when a watch was indispensable.
It transformed time from something fixed on church towers and station clocks into something personal. It travelled with us, quietly marking appointments, departures and moments that mattered. For generations, it was one of the few objects people relied upon every single day.
Today, that purpose has almost disappeared.
Every phone, laptop, tablet, television, oven and car dashboard displays the hour with remarkable accuracy. Time has become ambient. It surrounds us without requiring our attention.
If practicality alone determined which objects endured, the wristwatch should have quietly faded into history.
Instead, it became more cherished.
The change reveals something unexpected about the relationship between people and the things they keep.
Antropologists have long observed that objects often outgrow their original function. Across cultures, tools become symbols, everyday possessions become heirlooms, and practical items gradually acquire emotional weight. A family dining table is no longer simply furniture. A wedding ring is no longer merely metal. A handwritten letter is valued long after faster forms of communication exist.
The watch has followed the same path.
It no longer tells us the time.
It tells us something about ourselves.
The Craft Behind the Dial
Its transformation is perhaps most evident in the mechanical watch.
Inside its modest case, hundreds of finely engineered components work together through springs, gears and oscillating balance wheels. Nothing is hidden by software. Nothing updates overnight. Every movement is physical, every second earned through craftsmanship rather than computation.
It is an extraordinary achievement of human making.
A vintage pocket watch suspended on a chain — the ancestor of the wristwatch, carrying time before it became personal. Photo: Unsplash
The Japanese philosophy of monozukuri speaks not simply of manufacturing, but of making with sincerity, patience and devotion to quality. It values the unseen as much as the visible. A watchmaker polishes bridges that most owners will never see. Tiny screws receive careful finishing despite remaining hidden beneath the dial.
The pursuit is not efficiency.
It is integrity.
Richard Sennett, in The Craftsman, observed:
"Making is thinking."
"Making is thinking."
His words describe more than skilled hands. They remind us that every carefully made object carries within it the accumulated knowledge of generations. When we wear a mechanical watch, we do not merely wear steel or gold.
We wear centuries of refinement.
A watchmaker at work — the patient assembly of a mechanical movement, each component placed with precision. Photo: Revolution Watch
Time as Memory
History offers another perspective.
The modern wristwatch emerged during the early twentieth century, gaining widespread adoption during the First World War. Soldiers needed to read the time quickly without reaching into a pocket. Precision meant coordination. Coordination could determine survival.
What began as military necessity gradually became civilian ritual.
A minimalist watch held in hand — the wristwatch reduced to its essential form: a dial, two hands, and the quiet marking of time. Photo: Unsplash
A first watch often marked adulthood. A graduation. A first promotion. An engagement. Retirement.
The object quietly accompanied the milestones of a life.
Even today, many of the world's most treasured watches are remembered not because of their price, but because of the moments they witnessed.
A father passes one to a son. A traveller wears the same watch across continents. A couple engraves a date inside the case.
Time becomes memory. The watch becomes biography.
This explains why scratches are rarely regarded as imperfections.
Unlike a cracked phone screen, the worn edge of a watch often carries quiet dignity. Collectors speak of patina with affection. The softened leather strap, the faded bezel and the polished corners are not signs of deterioration.
They are evidence that the object has shared a life.
An exhibition caseback reveals the movement beneath — the hidden architecture that most owners will never see, yet which defines the object's integrity. Photo: WatchReviewBlog
Aged leather watch straps — patina as biography, each mark a record of somewhere the watch has been. Photo: Vintager Straps
The philosopher Martin Heidegger distinguished between objects that merely function and objects that gather meaning through our relationship with them. A favourite chair, a familiar fountain pen or a well-used notebook gradually becomes part of the rhythm of everyday life.
A watch belongs to this category.
Its value grows not through technological advancement, but through companionship.
A Quiet Response to a Frictionless World
Contemporary culture makes this even more striking.
The smartwatch can monitor sleep, measure heart rate, answer messages and navigate unfamiliar streets. It is astonishingly capable.
Yet alongside this technological progress, interest in mechanical watches continues to flourish. Younger collectors search for vintage timepieces. Independent watchmakers enjoy renewed attention. Hand-finished movements, once considered outdated, are admired with growing enthusiasm.
It is not nostalgia.
It is a quiet response to an increasingly frictionless world.
In an age where so much of life exists behind glass screens and invisible algorithms, the mechanical watch remains reassuringly tangible. It must be wound. It ticks. It ages. It asks for care.
It reminds us that not everything valuable should become effortless.
"The watch no longer measures time. It measures what we choose to value."
"The watch no longer measures time. It measures what we choose to value."
Perhaps this is why we continue buying watches even after their original purpose has disappeared.
They have escaped the fate of becoming obsolete.
Instead, they have become one of the few everyday objects that connect engineering, craftsmanship, history and personal memory in a single gesture around the wrist.
Every glance at a watch is no longer simply a question of What time is it?
It quietly becomes another question.
How am I choosing to spend it?
One day, every device around us may know the time more accurately than any mechanical movement ever could. Artificial intelligence may anticipate our schedules before we make them. Calendars may organise themselves. Reminders may arrive before we realise we need them.
Yet each morning, millions of people will still fasten a watch before leaving home.
Not because they need another clock.
But because, in a world increasingly defined by software, the watch continues to offer something beautifully human.
A reminder that some objects are worth keeping long after they have stopped being necessary.