Every morning I put my watch on face up. Inside of thirty minutes it has twisted around to face down. Rather then play with my watch all day I just leave it that way.
I suspect that is why most people you see do it.
I know of no evidence whatsoever that this is true.
The first wristwatches for men were used by officers in the military - evidently German officers in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 - because their hands were usually too full and busy to be able to fumble around for pocket watches. I don’t know which side up they would be, but whatever was most convenient, I’m sure.
French women wore them as fashion accessories in the late 1800s. So they surely would be designed to be as visible as possible.
They entered civilian wear for men in the 20th century. Airship pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont had the same problem as the officers: with both hands busy controlling his motor-powered hydrogen balloon he couldn’t see the time, a problem when trying to do time trials. So his friend Louis Cartier, of the jewelry firm, made a special Santos wristwatch for him. Given the pictures of the way he sat to fly, he presumably wore this on top because it would be easier to see. It took a while more for all men to copy him, but along with the change in men’s clothing cutting out vests and watch pockets the wristwatch soon became standard.
Can’t imagine how hiding the crystal fits in to all this.
Alfred Loomis, one of the founders of the Rad Lab during WW2, always wore two watches (he was obsessed with time). If one watch was a millisecond behind the big atomic clock that was the most accurate at the time, he would wear it on the inside or outside of the wrist to adjust the time. (For a cite, you’ll have to look in Tuxedo Park by Jennet Connant. I don’t know if there’s anything online, sorry).
So if you see any scientists wearing their watch that way, they may be unobtrusively adjusting the time.
I’ll tell you why I did it: I got a watch from my wife that had a protruding knob. The knob, when I wore the watch on the back of my wrist, dug into my skin every time I flexed my wrist back. Evetually, my skin at that spot became chafed and discolored. Bleah. So I turned it around. With the watch on the inside of my wrist, the knob fit neatly into the small “v” at the heel of my hand, so it never chafed the skin there.
When I was in the Navy working around jet planes I broke the crystal of my watch 3 times in 6 months. Then one of the medics suggested I wear it the other way round. I’ve been wearing it that way ever since. I think it’s more comfortable and easier to read that way too.
When I was a cool teenager back in the late fifties, along with the watch facing down, we also wore our belt buckle above the hip and not in front. The watch facing down also allowed you to flex your bicep when you looked at the time… (and, you kept the pack of Lucky Strikes rolled into the t-shirt sleeve on the same arm.) (and Elvis ruled!)
Yeah, that’s handy.
“I plugged that sucker at 8:32:51, officer”.
Yep. 
Actually, it makes it harder for guys like me who don’t like to wear a watch to cop a peek at your watch.
Ever noticed that some guys don’t like you looking at their watch? Weird!
Peace,
mangeorge
The US Army teaches folks to wear the watch with the face on the inside of the wrist.
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As others have pointed out, it reduces the likelhood of bashing the watch on soomething and breaking it.
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More importantly, it shields the watch crystal from view by the enemy. On a sunny day a piece of glass can act as a mirror, and a bunch of soldiers trying to slink hrough the bush may be unwittingly signalling their location with their watches. That’s Very Bad for their health. A watch face on the inside of the wrist is a LOT less likely to flash in the first place, and the reflections tend to be more into your body or towards the rear, rather than outside & ahead where the bad guys likely are.
They also have fabric watch bands that have extra flaps which cover the entire watch and are secured by velcro. That completely eliminates flashes, but then you have to make niose to read the time, which can also be bad for your health when sitting ambush or doing other stealthy activities.
And despite what someone said above, a lot of tactical events, attacks, etc., start at a very precisely pre-arranged time. All stealth is lost once the noise begins, but up to that moment everyone is tiptoeing and whispering and hiding and waiting until their watch says exactly 0803:00 or whatever.
Because it’s the only truly good thing my deranged mother passed on to me. However, I’m not really sure why she did it, although she’s stated (like Dopers above have said) it has to do with it being easier to peek at when you want to know the time while preventing others from realizing that’s what you’re doing and that it also helps protect the crystal.
I know for a fact that neither of these things are true, but it’s too late for me now. It’s a certified habit from basically all of my 35 years and I pretty much like it. Scratchy-ness be damned.
I’m another guy who started wearing his wristwatch on the inside because he got tired of bashing the crystal against door jambs, etc. Add to that my relatively thin wrists, and I found it more comfortable, especially with a heavy watch. So, no stylistic or historical reasons, just utility.
you mean they sell planes without clocks in them? I would ask for my money back
Sorry guys and gals, but I didn’t want to start a whole new thread for this tiny little issue, and seeing I had the attention of watch people…
I have a casio digital watch, the common black type, model dw-240 if that makes any difference; probably the impoprtant fact is that it has 4 buttons. And I would like to change the hour format to 24 hour from 12.
If you’re interested in a good tale, it goes like this:
For the past two years I haven’t been able to change the time, wasn’t sure of the problem but as it kept good time I wasn’t too bothered. I had to remember to not be affected by daylight savings, in the summer I was always an hour behind. I live in Spain. When I went to Portugal I would always be on time. When I went to NYC I had to remember to subtract 6 hours… little bothers like that.
Now I just came home from New York and my wife and I both forget to check my pockets, I forgot to mention that it has no watchband and I carry it as a pocket watch, and so the watch does a turn in the washing machine. Needless to say it comes out extremely clean, but dead.
So I remopved the four screws at the back and the backplate and placed it to dry out in the sun. Two days later it comes back to life, and not only that, it now is capable of being configured. I have changed the time to the correct hour and minute. Fabulous.
However it appears to be stuck in 12 hour format. I always used 24 hour format and I’m kind of addicted to it. And, for the life of me, I can’t remeber how to change this, or it may be non-functional. I cannot find any manual on the Internet, so i turn to Straight-Dopers for support.
So anyways, if someone could indicate to me how they change their format, it might help. I thoroughly recommend a yearly run in the washing machine for this watch.
eric
I like it loose and that’s where it ends up naturally.
My mom is a nurse and it somehow makes nursing easier, though I really don’t know why.
The face of my wristwatch is fairly large and, when worn the “normal” way, digs into my wristbone. Turning the face to the inside of my wrist alleviates the problem.
Who says there ain’t no easy answers?
I don’t wear a watch any more, but when I did, at one point I would switch back and forth between having the face on the outside of the arm vs. on the inside of the wrist every year or so. Mostly I was just curious about how hard it would be to break habits and retrain myself; there was always a period of a couple of weeks when I’d go to check the time and find myself looking at the band instead of the timepiece, because I was used to the other way. Along the same lines, I forced myself to draw my lower-case As differently, and right now I’m trying to do the same for my lower-case Gs.
I have a vague notion that it’s about keeping my mind agile, but that may just be a thin rationalization for something I do to be different. 
My watch is slightly too big for me. So it sometimes slips round.
Really? I went to www.casio.com, clicked “support” then “manuals” then “manual archive” (something like that), but they wanted the four digit number on the back of the watch so I gave up.
Is yours too old, maybe?
A friend of mine, who is right handed, wears his watch ((face out normal way)) on his right hand. When I finally noticed this, I inquired, and he was annoyed that yet another person had asked him. He said he likes it that way, and that its unique…
Is there a market for a watch with two faces? A Two-faced Watch?
I can’t think up a clever joke for this right now, but when I return to this post in 5 minutes, I m sure I will see a couple.
Personally, I like the face out way… for other reasons, and just cause you dont have to corkscrew your wrist to look at it.
exactly. dw-240
I can’t believe a mere Washingtonian is saying this, but… winters have been shitty lately.
It’s easer to check the time by pulling the sleeve back when the weather is shitty, rainy, and utterly unforgiving about that time you doubted they Olympic hockey team back in '80. And in DC, even people without watches like to know the exact time. Counting down, I suppose.
We’re in a brief respite between the time that those infernal things can be timepieces and calculators and alarms and the time when they’re going to be jukeboxes and data mules and translators.
Like a cigar ring, I try to keep my shit to myself. Doesn’t pay to advertise these days, no matter where yoiu are.
Anyone remember the Twist-o-Flex watchband? My old man and his boys used to wear watches on their ankles, so when the meetings became interminable, they could at least check the time under the table with a folded knee.