It is raining in Paisley again. A grey, steady drizzle that seems to have set in for the winter.
I checked the time a moment ago. 7:34 pm.
I didn’t check it on a screen. I didn’t have to wake a device up, or swipe past a notification about a breaking news story, or see an email I didn’t want to deal with. I just looked at my wrist.
It was my Casio F-91W.
I’ve written about this watch before. It costs thirteen quid from Argos. It looks exactly the same as it did in 1991. It tells the time, lights up (badly) if you press a button, and has a stopwatch I rarely use. That is it.
Lately, though, I have started to see this little piece of resin and plastic as something more than just a retro accessory. I see it as a political statement.
The Trap of the Upgrade
We live in an economy built on dissatisfaction. The entire tech industry is designed to make us feel that what we have is old, slow, or broken.
Batteries are glued in so we can’t replace them. Software updates slow down perfectly good hardware. We are nudged, gently but constantly, to throw away the old and buy the new.
The environmental cost of this is staggering. The rare earth minerals dug out of the ground, the energy used in manufacturing, the shipping, and finally the e-waste pile where our “old” gadgets go to die after two years.
It is a cycle of churn that is burning the planet.
Durability as Defiance
This is where the Casio comes in.
The battery in this watch will last seven years. Maybe ten. When it runs out, I can unscrew the back and put a new one in for pennies. It is not designed to be thrown away. It is designed to work.
Wearing it feels like a small act of resistance.
It is a rejection of the idea that everything needs to be “smart.” I don’t need my watch to track my heart rate or tell me the weather or sell me things. I just need it to tell me when it is time to put the tea on.
There is a concept in Green politics called the Right to Repair. It is the idea that we should legally require companies to make things that last and things we can fix ourselves. It is a massive, necessary shift in how we handle resources.
But we don’t have to wait for legislation to start living it.
Enough is Enough
Choosing “dumb” tech is a way of saying enough.
Enough noise. Enough tracking. Enough waste.
It is about finding satisfaction in utility rather than novelty. It is about respecting the materials things are made of, rather than treating them as disposable.
So yes, it is just a cheap watch. But on a rainy evening in Scotland, with the world trying to sell me everything I don’t need, it feels like the most valuable thing I own.