In the olden days of texting, people had to click a button two or three times to produce one character on the mobile phone screen. For me, it was hard work.
Therefore, I began looking for a shortcut. Sure enough, there was one, known as the “T9 input method” (T9 meaning text on nine keys).
So then I clicked one button just once for one character.
Simple.
A few years went by, and I became familiar with the QWERTY keyboard on a cell phone. Soon, everyone was clicking one button for one character.
Before I knew it, I started looking for something a little faster, a little easier. I was not disappointed, because a new way of typing called “continuous input” came to my rescue.
You slide your finger across the on-screen keyboard, over the appropriate buttons, and bingo. The characters appear on the screen like some kind of magic. These days, even sliding the finger is becoming hard work.
I found myself, yet again, searching for a way of texting that is even more effortless than that.
And so, I came across a promising new technology called “voice typing.” Just dictate the words to your phone, and the internet does the typing for you.
This personal anecdote may lead you to think, what has technology done to us? Well, in a word, life has changed in unimaginable ways due to the march of technology. As you will see, not all of this change is beneficial.
People do not put pen to paper as much anymore. Pen on paper writing, other than when done for academic purposes at educational institutions, is on the wane. A lot of the writing in the world is now done using a keyboard and a screen.
People do not sift through the pages of a book, journal, or encyclopaedia to gather information for a writing assignment, for example. At least not as much as they used to.
People do not read long stretches of text as much anymore. With the rise of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, people have developed a habit of reading short chunks of text. Canonical works of literature are now more discussed than actually read.
The dark side
Technological gadgets are largely to blame for the decreasing amount of reading and writing that we do in the 21st century.
Increasingly smart devices like TV sets, mobile phones, VR (virtual reality) headsets, game consoles, and computers look much more interesting than books.
In addition, those devices are more interactive and provide a kind of instant gratification for the user. Another outcome of the adoption of technology, a rather annoying one, is plagiarism of materials without acknowledging the source.
People do not read long stretches of text as much anymore. With the rise of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, people have developed a habit of reading short chunks of text
Writing original content has always been difficult, more so for some people than others.
With the widespread availability of computers and smart-phones, the copying of materials from other sources has become very common.
Some people show a little conscience in this regard, and mention the word “collected” at the end of their posts on Facebook and such, while others do not bother to show that courtesy.
One of the effects of the rising popularity of technology is that real-life face-to-face interaction has taken a hit.
We exchange emails and text messages in great numbers, but often forget that virtual interaction can hardly pass off as real-life communication.
The rise of technology has also led people to adopt a sedentary way of life. If you look back on the 90s, you will see that in most localities, favourite pastimes consisted of outdoor activities -- outdoor sports were highly popular among teens at that time.
These days, most teens love to play video games at home or browse the internet on their smart-phones. As a result, obesity has been on the rise.
Faculty members often use PowerPoint slides to teach classes at university. The purpose of it (namely, to have better control over the train of thought) has nothing wrong with it. What is questionable, however, is the way many students use the slides as a substitute for textbooks.
Also questionable is the way many teachers read the slides line by line, as if reading a book, without realising that this makes the class particularly boring.
By recounting my texting habits over the years, I was trying to show how people are now more accustomed to shortcuts. Even so, the merits of technology outweigh the demerits.
The individual using technology can choose to simply not focus on the easy pleasures of technology, but to use it in the most productive of ways.
Md Shamim Alam works at ReliSource Technologies Ltd.
