In lieu of the release of Apple’s smartwatch, universities have started issuing blanket bans on students wearing watches in exam halls simply because exam invigilators apparently can’t tell a regular watch from a smartwatch.
Given that smartwatches are getting more popular and this is set to skyrocket when the Apple Watch finally hits the streets, some colleges and universities have already started taking the precaution to prevent students from using them to reference notes or receive messages while on the test because smartphones are almost always if not linked to the smartphones of their wearers.
This knee-jerk reaction does seems to be a bit late considering it’s mostly in regards to the launch to the Apple Watch when smartwatches have been around for quite a long time as it is.
Basically what happened is that the University of London expressed concern that Apple’s watch will cause “problems in the exam hall” especially it wouldn’t be practical to check each and every student if they were wearing what they basically consider to be a mini-computer on their wrist. Therefore all watches would have to be removed and placed in a plastic wallet under their desks or simply don’t wear them to the exam venue in the first place.
They claim that they will be increasing the number of large wall clocks and desk clocks for students to keep the time with, so as the lack of watches won’t directly affect the students.
No word on whether our local universities will follow suit but there’s a high chance that they might.
