Modern Times

I have two microwave ovens which, what with me being a single guy, I find quite useful for cooking tasks such as making popcorn and heating leftovers. (Also useful for heating water for tea, if that counts as cooking.) Sometimes, I'll heat one of those frozen entrees – formerly called TV dinners – that are sold at the Frozen Dead Food Store. With two ovens, I can heat leftovers and boil water at the same time.

It goes without saying that my smart phone is smarter than me. It can do thousands more things than I need. But even my old "dumb" phone, which the industry euphemistically calls a "feature" phone, was smarter than me. It could do hundreds of things I would never need nor even understand why anyone would want to do them.

The old cell phones were phones with a little computer inside. The new phones are computers with a little phone inside. If I had to call 911 on my old phone, I would take it out of my pocket, flip it open, and press 9-1-1-Talk. To end the call, I would press "End." If I have to call 911 on my smart phone, I would take it out of my pocket, push the power button to bring it out of standby, swipe the unlock zone on the screen, touch the phone icon which brings up the Call Log, touch the phone icon on that screen to get the dial pad screen, touch 9-1-1 and then touch the phone icon on the dial-pad screen. Then, I would try to remember why I’m calling 911. Don't ask me how to end the call. I think the correct procedure is to remove the back cover of the phone and take out the battery. I'm pretty sure that will make the phone “hang up” (to use an obsolete term from antique phone technology) but I wouldn't bet money on it.

I'm not a texter. I don't understand the attraction of texting. The pretend-buttons on the pretend-keyboard are half the size of my fingertip. I can't type an entire word without making at least one typo. People like to complain about autocorrect, but autocorrect has never corrected a single typo I ever made, and though autocorrect is probably hiding on my phone and it's only turned off somewhere in the settings menu, I have no idea where that setting is located. Settings for various functions are always hidden in the last place I would look, assuming I even knew the hiding place exists.

The reason people have such a big problem with autocorrect is not the fault of autocorrect. It’s because no one can correctly type two consecutive words without introducing enough typos that the phone's computer, if it could, would say, "Huh?", but since it can't it just rolls the metaphorical dice and picks a word that starts with the same letter and has about the same number of letters (give or take three letters) as the combination of letters just entered.

People: quit blaming autocorrect when the real problem is your inability to accurately touch type on a pretend keyboard that is two inches wide. The solution is to turn off autocorrect and enter your message the way God intended: by retyping every word six times before moving on to the next word. The first time you spend twenty minutes typing a two sentence message, you’ll either find a way to communicate that doesn’t involve texting, or you’ll learn to love autocorrect, warts and all.