As recently as 2001, most of my English students (I taught for NOVA in 2001 to 2002) used their cell phones for email more than an at home type of PC or laptop computer.

Apple Otaku wrote:
I used to wear a watch… mobile phones have clocks that are synchronized automatically.

Yep, that’s the idea smart Japanese have about their keitai/cellphones—It’s an alarm clock that won’t ring on the weekends and holidays. Sales of alarm clocks as well as wristwatches have also plummeted in punctuality obsessed Japan.

….43% of Japanese use their cell phone as an alarm, and wake up to the sound of their cell phone’s ringtone, according to a recent survey by Cross Marketing Inc…[via What Japan Thinks [Digital World Tokyo]

Basically, what I wrote about Japanese on the whole worship their keitai/cellphones and much prefer them to PCs or watches. Watches have lost all meaning as fashion accessory in Japan and are seen now more as something that just gets in the way as you mentioned. Hey come to think of it, I haven’t seen any young girl (or guy for that matter) wearing a wristwatch on a date in a very long time.

The home personal computer in Japan was never ensconced as an icon of necessity. Until the late 1990s the Japanese government did its best to make the Internet painfully expensive all connections had to pay the toll by the minute to the quasi telecom monopoly NTT. Back in the bad-old-days any of my friends might mistakenly might try to download a video via modem and end up phone bill of hundreds of dollars for maintaining a connection all night. At the same, texting on a Japanese cellphone was cheaper and faster for Japanese input, hence Japanese grew more dependent on cell phones rather than personal computers (which are viewed more as a tool for work).