She is all of nine years old and when the school reopens will be at the last term of her Fifth standard. She is the daughter of my niece in Hyderabad and since the lockdown, has decided that I am fair game for her smart phone shenanigans.
She is totally adorable and I love the banter and enjoy our exchanges but this post is not about our relationship. It is about this little girl’s dexterity with the phone.
She texts fast and her responses to my messages are in half the time that mine are. She uses emojis widely and never uses a wrong one to convey any particular emotion. She chides me for being slow! And there I was thinking that I am a fast typist!
She recently produced an old photograph of me with some others and asked to point out which was me. Before I could respond, she sent the same photograph back on whatsapp with an arrow superimposed on it pointing to me with just ? in the comments section.
I have been trying to figure out how to do the same thing since then and am still to come up with the technique.
I dread imagining a future full of these children as adults using all technology at lightning speeds and leaving us oldies gasping for breath.
You have to turn your clock by 75 years. No doubt at that time no
I phones so l no texting.
You have to admit that current day kids are too smart for smart phones
Yes, we did not have even landline phones. The first one we had at home was when I was twelve years old. I personally had a phone at home in 1973, thanks to our employer. Remember? we had to pay for our personal trunk calls!
Yes, it is the speed of lightening, Ramana, but we were young once too and showed the oldies how fast we were at different pursuits.
I like the learning curve of all of this, the fact you are searching for the arrow thingie, etc. Very good for our old brains.
It is a good workout. I google everything and learn (what a gift Youtube is!) and practice and so many are in awe of this almost 77 yo brain.
Carry on my good man.
XO
WWW
I don’t have the patience WWW. I gave up the quest for the arrow thingie. I will learn how to do it from another youngster in the horizon. And, what brain?
Maybe when they get “older” they won’t have so much at their fingertips…and find themselves outclassed by the then “younger generation”
Very likely. There are already applications that type what you dictate to the phone. Soon, thoughts will be translated into text too I suppose.
Cute. And Kudos to her for thinking fast on her feet. Feet?
One little aside: Speed is overrated. I sometimes write, say, a comment/an email, worthy, so I hope, of some thought. My heart sinks when I get an answer back in max three minutes flat. What it indicates is that the recipient has SPEED read, digested nothing and most likely missed the point.
Looking forward to your considered reply in a few hours time.
U
My considered reply is simple. My exchanges with my grand niece are not on earth shaking matters and she believes in single or maximum three or four word compositions like why, what are you doing, when, what did you eat etc. My responses too are usually short and pithy. Often comic too, like she recently texted “you are lying” when I had said that I never studied as hard as she does and, I responded with “No, I am sitting.”
Having known me for some years now, you should also know that I am not one of those speed readers, responders! Even if I try, I cannot be fast or quick about anything. No, I am not lying. I am sitting.
They may be able to use technology at lightning speed but will they be any good at customer service? When I contact call centres, they’re good with the technology but they’re not necessarily friendly or helpful or patient.
I am in total agreement with you on this one. There are however some exceptions to this phenomenon and it always gladdens my heart when good customer service takes place.