Keeping Up with Technology

When I arrived at the Seminary to start my job they gave me the Blackberry that goes with the Guest Houses. It has a little tiny screen and a little tiny keyboard. The transition to the keyboard went more smoothly than it might have because I use the considerably larger, but still smaller than a standard (if such a thing truly exists anymore) one on my Kindle to take notes when I read. It still takes me longer to type something on it than it does on the larger computer keyboards. So began my experience with smart phones.

A couple of weeks ago I finally upgraded my personal phone to a smart phone. The battery in my old phone finally gave out after more than five years. I definitely got my money's worth out of it. I amazed my friends at how quickly I could type out a text message, but all that double and triple punching of keys on the standard phone keyboard really does take a lot of time. No one at the Verizon store laughed at my old Chocolate, they even commented that it was a good phone--in its day. So the woman who helped me asked me a lot of questions, listened carefully to my answers, and made a couple of suggestions. We looked at several options, and then I asked her some questions. We talked about battery life, screen size and format, usage, and a variety of other things.

Eventually, I settled on the Samsung Galaxy SIII. I opted for the screen layout and functionality I liked versus the slightly longer batter life. I had some less expensive choices, but I could afford the one I really liked. It doesn't come with a manual. You can download one online, but I haven't done that. I do what my brother's kids do, use it and play with it to see what it does. Have I learned everything about the phone yet? No, but every day I discover something new about it. It's an adventure.

I'm adapting fairly quickly to the touch pad keyboard. The auto-fill function, however, is driving me crazy. Hopefully, one of these days I'll figure out how to turn it off. I still can't, and probably never will, type as fast on it as I can on a standard keyboard, but I won't be using it to write large documents. I do like the larger screen, which is one of the major reasons I didn't like the iPhone. I put the Kindle app on it, so I can read my ebooks, if I end up someplace without my Kindle.

App. Yes it's an abbreviation, but as a term it has entered our language. We may not like it, but language changes. The number of new words the ever advancing technology has injected into our language continues to astound. Email, Ebook, App, WiFi,Hotspot, Blog, and many more. Self-appointed conservators of the English language attempt, much like the Académie Française tries with French, to preserve the language. It's a losing battle.

Technology just speeds along. I figure my smart phone has as much power and memory as the PC I had at Pitney Bowes a little over 20 years ago, and that had as much, or more, power and memory as the computer we had at Darien High more than 35 years ago. That computer took up a small closet in terms of space. I think I have a better understanding of what my grandparents experienced throughout their lives. They literally went from horse and buggy to landing on the moon to desktop computers. My maternal grandfather, however, took it all in stride. He kept up with it all typing with his index fingers. And he was a professional writer. If Granddad were alive today, he'd be all over Facebook and Twitter and waiting to embrace the next communications technology. My hope is that I can emulate Granddad as technology continues to evolve.

So far, so good.