I actually preferred my old wrist watch to my cell phone. My cell phone can often be jammed under my wallet, or in my coat pocket, over the back of my chair. It sounds like trivial little things, but as opposed to the ability to just look at my wrist and have it be right there, it gets annoying. Plus, I'm often in dark rooms for lectures, wherein I don't want to be lit up like a beacon just for checking the time. I'm a digital painter, so a lot of what I learn to do is time saving techniques that allow me to do the most in the fewest strokes and button presses, it's a similar logic to this. Rather than dragging my phone out of my pocket and hitting the middle button to light it up and check the time, I can look at a device conveniently already attached to my wrist and easily read the time.
There is also an association of watches with status. In the case of someone like me, who has a cheap Swatch, little status is implied, but there is something to be said about a man in a Rolex... mostly that he can afford a Rolex.
