---
title: And now his watch is ended.
date: 250508
category: phlog
---
This is day four without wearing my smartwatch and it has been a
relief. The haptic tap whenever anything happens was a surefire
way to pull my attention in directions it didn't need to go. Yet
for the past near-decade I just let it happen. How essential is
it that I see my coworkers' Wordle results for the day the split-
second they announce them? How useful is it to see the subject
line and maybe the first dozen words of a vendor's email when I'm
going to have to look at it again anyway on my phone or my laptop
when it comes time to delete it? What do I get out of a constant
stream of group chat chatter aside from a constant stream of dis-
traction?
My brief and sporadic time on the small web has brought back some
older web habits and mindsets. Specifically, that it will be
there when I am ready to go back to it. The same can't really be
said for an algorithmic FOMO machine like Instagram or Twitter,
where you need to keep scrolling if you want to see what's hap-
pening. And I can't say how many times I've seen a post that I
wanted to read or view in depth, only to have the feed refresh,
filing the post into the depths of "already viewed, never show it
again." Not the same on a web arranged by people, not the same
on a web with persistence. And if something is down, a raspberry
pi in a closet somewhere sputters out, there isn't that sense of
"I missed my one opportunity to engage!" Maybe it comes back one
day, maybe it doesn't. The space will be here, more or less the
same, if the creator chooses to come back.
Taking my watch off has felt similar. When it buzzes my wrist, I
*need* to see what's happening for fear of missing it. Instead I
am reclaiming agency and intention. I am not at the whims of the
machine's feedback: it works for me. Tomorrow, I'm picking up my
plain-as-plain Casio timepiece I found secondhand. Something a
little slower, something that does one thing. What I give up is
minuscule, what I gain is unquantifiable.
