Thumb Typing

 

As an eighth grader, planning my HS freshman curriculum, I sat with my mother and guidance counselor in his cramped office.  He commented that my teachers invariably complained about my penmanship.  Legible handwriting meant more in the 1960s than it does now, when everyone has a keyboard at hand.  He glanced at my grades, then thought he would amuse us by taking me to a branch point.  Become a doctor or enroll in typing class.  Even future doctors had to write in essay books throughout high school and college.  The next fall, I shuttled just a few doors over at the end of my scheduled daily English class to a room filled with Royal and Underwood Olivetti office model manual typewriters.  Too big for anyone to steal.  None bolted to the desks.  My assigned seat brought me to a Royal, frame color robin's egg blue.  They prepped us for accuracy and for speed.  Mediocre on accuracy, though I would probably surpass anybody else in the class in a spelling bee.  Speed limited by the same manual dexterity challenges that got me mediocre grades in art and shop classes throughout Junior High.  My speed lagged behind everyone else's.  I probably could find most of the keys without peeking at them, but the mid-teen me was too insecure to risk typos, which happened anyway.

I got by.  My father had a manual typewriter from college that became our home device.  From then on, I typed my own papers.  When my mother typed them for me, the Greeks always appeared as Freeks.  Proofreading and white-out correction fluid would come later.  When I typed my own papers, the teachers often nudged the grade up a couple of points for the correct spelling and few typos.

I college, I bought an electric typewriter, one that allowed the line return with the hit of a button with my right pinkie instead of a lever to the left of the platen.  It served me for decades, until the advantages of word processing to touch typing became so overwhelming that electric typewriters disappeared, as did the J.J. Newberry store where I purchased it.  That skill of knowing which finger went with which letter served me well, though I never got the hang of numbers on the top line.  The numeric pad to the right of the letters compensated that effortlessly, as I had much practice with an electric adding machine long before hand calculators took over.

Desktops, then laptops.  No remedial effort needed.  Tablets with the keyboard as part of the screen, though, returned me to single finger hunt and peck typing.  And the smartphone, QWERTY keyboard of tiny letters smaller than the tips of my fingers, restored me to the same slow speed, poor accuracy of my Junior High years.  I'm the slowest again.

As I watch kids, though, including my own young adults, and HS and college age kids on buses and planes and other public places, they type fast.  It is not the touch typing that they made me learn in 8th grade, nor is it the nine finger tapping of a keyboard with real keys, whether desktop or laptop.  Instead, the speed comes with two finger typing, the thumb of each hand while the iPhone or Android cradles in a palm.  My OLLI course list does not offer a class in how to do this.  There are tutorials, though.  They date back to the early days of the iPhone.  YouTube videos.  Written monographs.  Maybe they even tutor this in grade school or other places where kids that young shouldn't have phones.

It's tempting to try my hand at mastery, though lack of this skill has not been detrimental. Acquiring this proficiency might be if I use it to text people incessantly.  Still, I cannot help but admire all those young folks tapping their pseudokeys at an awesome rate, even if they would be better off using their devices less.  Like my own entry to touch typing, now sixty years ago, skills enhance with practice.  They become useful, if not essential.  And at present, my left thumb remains mostly dormant on a standard keyboard.  I should try to find a useful purpose for that left-out digit.

Absent Cell Phone

Being in my later years, most of it transpired without portable devices other than my hospital issued medical pager.  As a resident, its range was essentially only the hospital.  Beyond that, its range was literally Beyond.  And it went off.  Inconvenient times, inconvenient places.  Inside, it would get answered immediately.  Outside or car, it depended on who had been trying to reach me.  The number needed to call back either came audibly or visibly on an alphanumeric screen.  If it seemed like a medical need, depending on how far I was from my destination, I would postpone the return call until I arrived there or if farther away, drive to someplace that likely had a pay phone.  A phone that could call from the car definitely warranted a tax deduction as legitimate professional equipment.  I only needed one to make calls.  The beeper remained the preferred means of somebody trying to reach me.  A few dumb phones, basically used like my home or office phone but with portability, served their intended purpose.  As technology improved, though, having a portable device that could connect me not only to what the telephone used to do but all of cyberspace became irresistible to most people with the means  to get one, so I joined the global community of smartphone users.

Its most essential purpose really has not changed.  My hand-held device goes with me in the car where it becomes a rack-held device, not to return beeps but just in case I am immobilized while driving.  And that rarely happens, but when it does, the phone is my easy way back to normal.  FOMO, no, FOCarBreakdown si.  While devices now do it all, it is only with my current car that I abandoned an independent GPS device, as the one that came with my current car failed too many times.  I have an independent camera, tape recorder, flashlight, measuring devices, laptop, stereo, and a full collection of road maps from when the gas stations, tourist bureaus, and AAA gave them away for free.  The maps of the places I go still have a pouch in the back seat where I can retrieve the one I need within minutes of when I need it.  My car radio has AM/FM.  I still go to the library to get books.  So while apps can replace most of these things, indeed I have downloaded many of these electronic tools, it is really only the device GPS that I use plus the peace of mind that I can contact assistance immediately when needed.  And I can do that safely, as my 2018 sedan projects my cell phone options onto an easily visible dashboard screen.  Technically, I do not need the phone holder, as the dashboard screen will display my phone options even when it is in my pants pocket.

One day last week, instead of putting the smartphone in my pocket or on one of two tables, the desk where I work or the table where I eat, I left it on its overnight resting place, also limited to three.  It could pass away the dark hours in its charger, under my pillow with the sleep tracker recording later how my insomnia fared, or it could just lie idly flat on a shelf behind my bed.  The fewer places an object could be, the less likely it will be misplaced.  This night I left it behind my bed. 

Up at usual time.  Morning routine, dental hygiene, check indoor plants, retrieve newspaper from driveway, make coffee, then take it upstairs for a morning at my laptop until treadmill time.  Often I will first use the cell phone as a timer for my scheduled treadmill session, but this day I used a kitchen timer, pulling it with its magnet off the refrigerator.  Exercise done, timer back on fridge door.  Me back in My Space on laptop.  Needing to do some errands, seek a few minor amusements, and sit on a park bench in the sunshine for a while, I headed to the car, driving off but without my omnipresent device.  I didn't even realize its absence until reaching into my left pants pocket, it's usual place of transport, finding it not there.  I didn't need it, but might have listened to an audiobook borrowed from our library's Hoopla Service on the way home.  Pretty reliable car, not likely to break down.  Drive safely, not likely to have a collision and if I did somebody from the other car could call the police.  Just drove home.  When I got there I confirmed that my smartphone had remained in its customary overnight resting place behind my bed.  I made a decision to leave it there until bedtime, then charge overnight if necessary, but not use it or even have it with me until the next day.  If I wanted to drive someplace else without it, I would, and without its GPS capability.  No phone until the next day.  No apps until the next day.  If I fell down the stairs or had chest pain at home, I could either hobble to a landline or my wife would eventually find me.  It just stayed there.  And with no adverse consequences of not having it.

As a practical matter, the downside of portability is losing the device, which I'm sure happens a lot.  Lost & Founds likely have drawers or bins of these cell phones.  People insure their devices from loss or theft.  But in the hours to days of absence, there is an inevitable FOMO or parallel dread of not being to replace what was on the SIM Card or mini-SD Card.  I knew where my phone was the entire time, forgoing its figurative attachment to me voluntarily.  It brought me peace to not have it, yet know where it was.  Not knowing where it was would have generated a very different inner response.

Faulty Phone

I've had my device less than a year.  It replaced a phone damaged by an errant wave at the beach which served me mostly trouble free for four years, which replaced another damaged by water.  This one seemed as close as I could get to a 1:1 exchange.  It had a C-port so I purchased a new charger and cord, then to Five Below for some more cords and a suitable car adapter.  

This week the ability to recharge it started to fail.  With my charger and cord, obtained at the time of phone purchase, it would sometimes turn on, sometimes not, sometimes charge, sometimes stop charging after the initial screen indicated the charger had been recognized.  My wife's charger refreshed my phone reliably.  I therefore assumed the fault lied in the wall charger or cord, so I bought a new charger and brought in my cord from the car.  No recognition of the phone with that charger either.  In my car, the USB-C cord connected to the car's USB port or into a USB adapter seemed to work, the C-C cord inserted to the car adapter's C-port gave the same result as the c-c cords in my house to the wall adapters.  I put my wife's phone, which also has a C-port into both of my C-port chargers, and with each of my c-c cords.  Her phone charged instantly. Must be my phone. Or maybe not yet.  

Solutions to most anything can be found with a web search.  First, my situation had been recognized by others, many others, including places offering to fix that problem for a fee, one an easy drive from home.  And also a few algorithms, not successful, at least the easy ones weren't.  Took the Samsung to its place of purchase.  T-Mobile store no help, in fact, I'd call them anti-help.  They sell phones and saw an opportunity to sell another.  Told me I had no warranty even though the device was less than a year old and it came with a warranty.

Samsung has a site.  Accessing it not easy, Not yet succeeded.

Since my phone charged on a USB-C cord in my car and on my wife's charger, I took the cord inside from the car, plugged it into a wall device with a USB port and five minutes later it is still charging.

Teachers and professors over the years put a lot of effort into teaching their students how to approach an unknown, this time my phone not accepting a charge in one situation but functioning in another, in a methodical way that explores each possibility.  I'm out of possibilities.  But I'm still ahead of the agent at T-Mobile who had no interest in figuring out which part could be remedied, defaulting to her interest of selling a new phone that the customer may not really need.

Some Minor Consumerism

There are items I need.  Things like dishwashing soap, pants and eggs.  There are things that I kinda need like coffee and seltzer in lieu of wretched soda.  And there are things that I want but really don't need like most of the food my doctor discourages or the link bracelet I often wear on my right wrist.  Another category might be things I really don't need but want until I have them, after which they shift into need.  A cell phone or 55" big screen flat TV would be among these.  And within needs there are gradients of want.  While I need a shirt, its Phillies logo moves it into something that I want.  And most things from freebie tables are probably momentary wants, rarely needs, though I do appreciate some of the totes and logo umbrellas I've acquired that way.

So time to surf amazon.com as a few items that I already possess have shown need for upgrade or replacement.  Could use some semi-casual shoes.  Found suede chukka boots both in my size and on sale, a rare match in any store.  I probably needed a new pair of daily shoes, or really every other day shoes to enhance their longevity.  That hybrid of kinda need and want, though only want at a favorable price.  My cell phone needed urgent replacement.  T-Mobile ripped me off for a screen protector which promptly cracked.  I needed a new screen protector.  And while I was there, since free shipping needs a minimum purchase, I found a suitable case, which incidentally comes with its own screen protector.  Into the cart.

My smartwatch, an iTouch Slim has begun to fail.  I retrieved some more traditional dial watches, two of three in need of new batteries.  Watch batteries a lot less expensive at amazon.com than at Walgreens, so into the cart.  But I really like my iTouch better, though we could quibble about whether it can be worn to shul as it goes on and off electronically with hand motion.  I wear it.  Despite the inconvenience of having to charge it, which I don't with my traditional watches, I liked its slim appearance and greatly appreciate the ability to set a wrist buzz to assign the fixed awake and retire times required for optimal sleep hygiene.  Alas, its charge barely lasts a day.  

As technology improves, that same expenditure gives more features.  I selected a GloryFit model, larger square face, though I found the slim face more unobtrusively stylish.  What sold me were the doodads, the ability to select a hundred or more displays, nearly all in color, compared to my iTouch selection of three monochrome fonts.  This model offers me the weather, a sleep tracker that is probably inaccurate, an oxygen and blood pressure read, also not to depend upon.  Basically, it's part watch, part toy, and at almost the same price as the one it replaces, which makes it somewhat disposable if its use disappoints.

All but the chukka boots and batteries have arrived.  Cell phone in its case.  Cracked screen protector replaced, with four more on standby in anticipation of this protector serving its purpose by eventually sustaining a replaceable injury.  GloryFit watch charged, playing with the settings.  Minor gripes already, the temperature reads as Celsius, though I programmed Imperial units.  I do understand metric units, though.  Indeed, it would be better for Americans to just use them like everyone else.  Choose a different watch face later today.

Getting a New Cell Phone

My devices fail suddenly.  Boost phone got wet.  The phone that replaced it failed to take a charge.  I had to replace it on short notice a week before my Adriatic cruise.  The phone that replaced it, my current Samsung Galaxy J7 Star, had no serious issues in its not quite four years of faithful service.  Yet it took an unanticipated wave from the sea, never quite working right in the four days that followed.  Initially it had an overheated message, then auto shutoff.  I went to the T-Mobile store to see about repairs or replacement, writing down the model numbers of their affordable inventory.  I selected one, but by the following day, the phone worked fairly well, though the speaker never recovered.  I could get sound with headphone but not with the telephone or You Tubes.  Damaged beyond repair.  I had one false alarm previously, dropping it on the concrete front walk resulting in a glass crack.  Followed online repair, small enough to stabilize with some superglue.  No loss of function that time.  Followed the self-helps on the WWW, no luck.  Time for a new phone.

This sort of brings me to a branch point.  The path of least resistance would be to go to the T-Mobile store and get one of theirs.  Not that T-Mobile endeared themselves to me.  Never liked going to the store, reminds me too much of my synagogue where very little thinking goes on and the staff really don't register anything you try to tell them.  T-Mobile telephone agents have been a better experience but I often didn't get what I wanted.  If the price of other carriers is comparable, I'm open to a different company.  Could go to Staples, maybe should. I did.  They abandoned their in store cell phone business. Probably shouldn't go to Best Buy, but could at least take a look.  Sufficiently deterred by my last two times there not to give it third round.  I'm not desperate for a replacement and can still get sound with earbud use.  Check the options.  Decide by day's end.

In the meantime, I went to Target which had options that I mostly didn't understand.  So I called my friend in NYC who does understand.  Advice:  stay simple.  Just go back to T-Mobile, get one of their phones and pay them to set it up.  So that's what I did.  Chose the one I preferred from the list I made a few days earlier.  Setting it up not straightforward.  I wanted this straightforward.  To do that I needed to select another Samsung Phone.  They had one in my budget, so now we're ready to go.  The agent plugged stuff in.  I added a new charger and a screen protector, as cracked screen from dropping is the most likely source of premature demise not covered by warranty.  Agent said all done.  Since it has C-cords, I went to Five Below down the road apiece, purchasing one cord with a C-insert at each end and another with a C-port for the phone and a USB port for my car's outlet to use it when driving.  

As soon as I got in my car, I realized that the Toyota App did not transfer.  Neither did any of my other apps.  I reinstalled Toyota, paired my new phone, confirmed that I could connect to the car's navigation system.  Then home, more than a little irritated as I settled on the Samsung brand because it could make the new phone identical to my old one.  My wife being a much nicer person than me, most notably when I am irate, we both headed back to the T-Mobile store.  Yes, the apps should have transferred but that requires a minimum level of charge on the old device, which it didn't have.  So I charged it in the store, he then transferred the apps and confirmed that the transfer would complete in an hour or so even when no longer plugged in.  

I returned home with all my stuff in the pink paper shopping bag with the T-Mobile logo.  Left it on a kitchen chair overnight.  The apps all transferred, though they appear on the new screen in a different order than the old one.  But I think I'm ready to do things that I did with the previous device.  I can check email, access the internet, take pictures, make a YouTube additions to my dr. plotzker's mind series, read library books from Hoopla, and ignore text messages.  A bit more of an ordeal than I would have liked.  Takes some time getting used to the new format.  Generally my phones last four years or so, almost regarded as semi-disposables, but I anticipated nearly full restoration of previous utility soon.