Now that virtually everybody has been indoctrinated into the computer age, it appears we are dealing with a major problem: the shrinking keyboard. The smaller the keyboard, the harder it is to navigate.
I don’t normally like to text while on public transportation, but the other day I was seated next to a fellow who had me pinned by my elbows while I was trying to type 1,700 words in a window seat with a keyboard the size of a candy bar.
So why was I so frantically trying to text under such conditions? I decided to sign up for the writing challenge of National Writing Month (NoNoWriMo for short), which tasks intrepid writers with producing 50,000 words in the month of November. This requires about 1,700 words a day. Unless I wanted to cheat and just freely type a bunch of words into the computer to get the required word count, some planning and time to create was required. The time I had on this particular day, I found on public transportation.
Which brings us back to the shrinking keyboards. Even our best cell phones have teeny little keypads. Some are QUERTY (typewriter style), while some simpler (and some might say dorkier) versions use the telephonic letters on the number pad to text. Netbooks also have small keyboards, which is how the manufacturer gets the computer to be as small as a novel. Which is what I’m trying to write.
There is nothing more infuriating than trying to use human fingers on inhuman sized buttons. The error rate is ridiculous, especially for folks like me who learned to type 65 words per minute in high school on a regular size keyboard.
Touch pads and screens and thumbs don’t get along very well, either. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve accidentally hit a touch pad with a stray thumb that is just hanging on my hand waiting for a summons to use the space bar. After considerable time spent on the road trying to defeat the restrictions imposed by my seat partner, my thumbs are now cramped and sore. I don’t know if there are carpal tunnels in my thumbs, but they hurt as I’m typing this.
I hear that there is voice recognition software out there. Maybe that’s the answer to my situation. Heck, I can speak 1,700 words into a mouthpiece and the folks around me will just think I’m on my cellphone (which I can’t text on).
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