Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Watch This Space

Time. Do we really have to keep track of it? And how do we do it?

I tend to track the day either by using my Timex or the various clocks around school. My students, however, seem to have a more casual relationship with timepieces -- at least of the wearable variety.

While proctoring an Advanced Placement exam today (54 kids taking advanced calculus) I noticed that maybe 1/3 of the kids were wearing wrist watches. I say maybe because several were wearing sleeves long enough to cover one up if they had one on. Most arms were bare without even a strap mark to indicate that they ever wore one.

No, I did not ask them about it. They think I'm weird enough.

Is it a generational thing? Is it a cultural thing? (I suspect not on the latter as the lack of watches spanned the ethnicities in the room.) I'm going for generational as almost all of them had cellphones and other devices. This I know because I collected them all.

They seem to use their cellphones as timekeeping devices. Hmm ...

Squidette does that, too. Little Squid, on the other hand ... well you know that story. He is down to an average of 3 watches per day, rotating through them. On the weekends he tends to only wear the one with the alarm.

3 comments:

Kristen said...

I sometimes wore a watch in my youth, but kicked that habit! I just don't like the feel of them(don't wear jewelry either) and don't like being 'tied to time'. Clocks are everywhere nowadays-including the car, the microwave, and the computer. I can always ask someone with a watch for the time if really necessary.

Susan said...

I think it's the cells. The Girl's can do about anything, I think. She can even set it so it will alarm if she's supposed to do something at a certain time.

Anonymous said...

Now a days watches are used as a accessory more than a timepiece. It is all due to cellphones. But I use to wear a watch daily to keep the record of time. last week i got one from ShopNBC.