The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979)

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Douglas Adams's comic science-fiction novel. Arthur Dent survives Earth's demolition and is carried into a universe of bad planning, improbable travel, and one very useful electronic guidebook. (Open Library)

Watches

Digital watch

The opening narrator describes Earth's inhabitants as primitive despite their enthusiasm for digital watches. This is a comment on the planet's population rather than a watch assigned to Arthur Dent. (Penguin Random House, publisher's sample)

Source text: they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea. (Del Rey, 2017 mass-market edition, ISBN 978-0-345-39180-3, p. 1; publisher's sample)