I don't know what to tell you. I also wore cheapo digital watches back in the 80s. My first one just told time and had red LEDs. That was probably elementary school or jr. high. Later I wore an LCD one that I thought was oh so cool. It had more advanced functions such as stopwatch, alarm, etc. That was probably highschool and early college. Around the same time some of my friends even had calculator watches. We were so high-tech we thought.
It was always a plastic band. I tried my father's watch once with the flexible metal band, that pulled. I guess he just grinned and bared it because when you live through a Depression and a war a little pulling now and then is no big deal.
Anyway, unless you don't sweat I don't see how you wouldn't notice the nasty looking (and smelling) whiteness every night you took the thing off. I guess you could have low sweat and fare skin, or something. Of course everybody's different. The watches annoyed me long before the era of cel phones, and I may be somewhat "on the spectrum" so that could have something to do with it.
I observed that time was everywhere, (microwave, radio station ID, computer, etc.). I just learned to do without time on my wrist even before cel phones. There were those rare occasions when I felt the need to ask. I seem to recall very early in the cel phone era, somebody pulling out their phone to tell me. I thought "well, that's one cool thing about these phones everybody carries now".
We didn't get a cel until my parents were aged. The idea was that my father would use it for emergencies. So more oddball stuff I suppose. In our house, the mobile phone was for old people. Dealing with my father's illness, death, and estate pushed me into the cel phone era--people began to expect timely contact from me, and then there was no going back.
"Smart" tech though? Nah, still not on board. There are a few things that are sort of cool about it; but as you gather I have a tendency to move slowly in these areas. You can call me a luddite if you want; but there's a lot to be said for late adoption. A whole class of early bugs and security issues get worked out while I watch from the sidelines. Sometimes entire technologies pass in and out of relevance because my adoption is that late. I see that as win because I didn't waste time on the trendy tech.
That's not to say I haven't been burned though... MFC, Flickr. I wish I never met 'em. I suppose there's something to be learned from those failures. I suppose I may even err too far on the side of trying to prevent failure. It takes all kinds. I think it's wonderful that we have early adopters, and non-adopters. It'd be boring (and way too crowded) if everybody was on the bus.
