[erikpukinskis]

The lack of a screen capable of paragraphs and videos would cut you off from the most forms of readily available content, which would blunt the device's addictive potential.

It's similar to the theory that mandating a lower nicotine content in tobacco would curb addiction.

[Avshalom]

A watch might be worse at keeping my attention but it is even better at demanding my attention.

[lathiat]

Getting my Apple Watch actually forced me to go through and get rid of a bunch of useless notifications also from my Phone. I didn't notice them on the phone so much - it was really great to do that.

And I already had a relatively "clean" notifications list, it's easy to get a total barage from all sorts of crappy third party games that want to beg you to play once a day.

The only thing I am longing for now is that I am on-call 24x7 and need to get Phone Calls & Messages.. you can set Do-not-disturb while sleeping to allow phone calls (all or from contacts), but not messages. I'd like to disable all notifications at night except messages or even better yet could set a per-app preference. Main reason is that I have notifications I like for youtube uploads for example, but I don't want them at night time.. which is common because a lot of channels are USA time and I am Australia time.

[brianpan]

You are in control of that- doesn't your watch let you configure notifications?

My watch is always on mute (vibrate only) and it has only a subset of the notifications that my phone has. My experience is it is less demanding of my attention than my phone.

[sly010]

> doesn't your watch let you configure notifications? Doesn't your phone too?

The whole argument reads to me like "to free myself i could just get a feature phone but that would be uncool, so i will buy a smartwatch instead"

[brianpan]

I think it's the opposite. If you want a feature phone, you don't want a smartwatch. But if you use your phone a lot, maybe a watch can reduce the friction of some of those tasks. If the laptop can stay in the bag and the phone can stay in the pocket (and the actions are just as fast or faster) then the watch is a win for me.

Do you pull your phone out of your pocket to set timers/alarms? Fire off quick texts? Do you pull your phone out of your purse just to check the time? Gee, why not put all of that on your wrist?

And the point of responding to the GP is, this super low friction doesn't have to mean even more overwhelming interruptions if you don't want it to. You can mute or DND notifications if you want.

[aptwebapps]

Sounds a good argument to me.

[Bud]

The Apple Watch's screen already allows for display of paragraphs. You can easily read rather long emails by scrolling.

[jasonkostempski]

Then people will just wear more watches.