"""This removes human agency, and it's only true if we, as individuals, want it to be true. (I'm 28, wear a watch, and use a paper notebook (http://jseliger.com/2011/05/11/eight-years-of-writing-and-th...) in addition to having an iPhone; but the iPhone only takes up as much mental bandwidth as I let it)."""

Yeah. So on top of owning an iPhone, you are also a hipster with a (trendy but useless, considering the iPhone also tells the time) watch and a notebook (it's even a Moleskine).

Way to prove the parent poster's point.

Seriously? A watch costs as little as $2 and goes on your wrist. You will never need to reach into your pocket or bag for it. It will run for months, or years, on a single battery. You will probably never drop it and break it. Unless it's stupidly expensive, you will probably never be mugged for your watch.

Anyway, Moleskine is nice but Miquel Rius notebooks have nicer grid paper options. :)

"""Seriously? A watch costs as little as $2 and goes on your wrist. You will never need to reach into your pocket or bag for it. It will run for months, or years, on a single battery. You will probably never drop it and break it. Unless it's stupidly expensive, you will probably never be mugged for your watch."""

My point was not that the watch itself was stealing his mental bandwidth, but rather hipster culture.

1) I don't know what you mean by a "hipster," or what a "hipster" is, other than that you're using the term as a slur: http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html . I also don't know what "hipster culture" means or is.

2) The original poster who I'm responding to said, "the days of the wristwatch and one-function cell-phone are gone [. . .]," so I'm not sure how one can be simultaneously "trendy" and part of a declining trend (that is, watch-wearing).

3) If you'd read the link, you'd know that I don't use Moleskine notebooks any more because their quality variability appears to have increased over time.

"""The original poster who I'm responding to said, "the days of the wristwatch and one-function cell-phone are gone [. . .]," so I'm not sure how one can be simultaneously "trendy" and part of a declining trend (that is, watch-wearing)."""

Hipster culture is all about celebrating declining trends as trendy. It's precisely because watch-wearing is a "declining trend" that makes the hipster wear one to stand out. A hardcore hipster would probably sport a pocket watch, but check this out: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/apr/28/casio-f-9...

""" If you'd read the link, you'd know that I don't use Moleskine notebooks any more because their quality variability appears to have increased over time."""

Spoken like a true hipster. As if a non-hipster cares to measure the "quality variability of his notebooks".

Now, you might be totally ignorant of the hipster culture, I'll give you that.

But the prevalence of things like Moleskine notebooks are precisely because of that demographic. Check: http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2009/02/24/122-moleskine-not...

The watch isn't necessarily useless, if he's prone to get distracted with email and so on when he uses his iPhone to check the time.