If you're reading this around the time I'm typing it (calendar year 2022), and you own a smartphone, try adjusting your settings so that it doesn't attempt to place the current time front and centre when you go to use it. Is it possible? (I glean that's a meaningful question for today's average user of personal technology, but my Apple devices are my companions and I'll be remarking as such a user.)

It feels like one of those things that's only the way it is because it's never really been questioned.

"Why would you not want to show the time?"

Personally, I've had at least one phase where I aimed to remove displays of the time from my visual scope in order to experiment with clock-unrelated approaches to productivity and routines, hiding or removing all other clocks. I found it an improvement and haven't returned from it.

In general, I effortfully maintain awareness that clocks and calendars are invented tools, derived directly and reliably from nature, but not strictly inherent to nature, and whatever social and cultural meaning or power they have is volunteered by people. (And is not, and should not be, imposed on people.) Anyone can choose, for example, to mark and celebrate whatever they enjoy – that's the beauty of cultural diversity on both individual and societal levels. If you can appreciate all of that, you can appreciate the idea that not having the option not to display the time on your own devices is something like not having the option not to be shown celebratory messages for an occasion you haven't chosen to mark or celebrate.

Another response: why would others want to show the time? Out of every 100 times the average person goes to use their smartphone, how often is their goal to check the time? I'm sure it's more than zero, but is it enough to feature the time so much more centrally than all other potentially sought or unsought information, especially considering it's also steadfast in the status bar, and – in iOS 16 – redundantly available on the lock screen as an optional widget?

I would similarly love the Apple Watch not to insist on featuring the time on its idle face. That might sound self-defeating, but Apple spends plenty of time and money on keynotes, videos and web sites explaining how many dozens of other things the watch is for (and which I use it for!).

Starting with macOS Big Sur, even the Mac's clock became unhideable when doubling as the toggle for Notification Center and the widget cluster. But it's possible, at least, to hide the menu bar and pick an analog clock which is small enough to be unnoticeable without deliberately focusing on it.

One of my favourite remarks from Jony Ive, close to the evolution and soul of Apple design for two decades, is:

… You’re constantly looking at something and thinking, “why is it like that? Why is it like that, and not like this?”

Perhaps he would disagree in the case of the Apple Watch which does a lot to honour the history of watches dedicated to timekeeping. But the lock screen of an iPhone? Any of the thousands of times he's looked at the time on the lock screen, did he once think "why is it like this" in the way I constantly do?

One consolatory observation: the customizability of the iOS 16 lock screen does allow you to set the colour of its content to a solid colour on an identically-coloured, effectively hiding it. It's clearly not the intent of that customizability, but it finally accomplishes the goal.