The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979)

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 novel famously uses Earth's fascination with digital watches as a joke about technological self-importance; Goodreads preserves the quoted passage.

Source text: Exact wording has not yet been verified from an accessible copy; an edition-level passage is still needed.