Friday, November 12, 2010

The Dependency of Typing

My family bought our first computer in 1998. It wasn't until the year 2000 that I became socially involved in the computer. Websites like Melodramatic (my first blogging site) took up most of my time, as well as Notpopular, which is today's facebook. Then I found livejournal and aeonity. I've always been a blogger ;-)

I didn't get a cell phone till I went to high school, so communication with my friends was dealt online. Yes, the infamous Aol Instant Messenger had been my pal for countless years. When it came to homework, all my essays were typed. I'd hardly use a pen and paper, unless I was in class. After repetition, I began to type 90 WPM. Back then, it was more surprising than it is now.

Though I noticed a change in me, mentally. I have realized this again today as I wrote (not typed) a congratulations card. I can not write something without making a mistake. It could be a word, a letter, I could even miss a whole sentence I meant to write. Things are off and don't sound as good if I didn't type it.

Example: My boyfriend's mom is graduating from college tomorrow so we got her a card and I wrote what I wanted in Microsoft Word so that I could just copy it onto the card, with it being exactly how I want. Ahem. I messed up four times, COPYING what I already typed! I had to go buy a new card because I like everything to be neat. I also realize how terrible of a speller I truly am if I'm writing on paper. And I just don't know if this is a good, or bad thing.

7 comments:

  1. Write-os are so embarrassing and I make them all the time anymore. It's horrific.

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  2. Interesting you should say that; I actually tried old fashioned writing yesterday. I gave my dad, and had to wait for him. And while I waited, I though I’d do some writing in a pad with a pen! I had no idea how out of practise I was.
    The enigmatic, masked blogger

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  3. I have such a difficulty on exams when I have to actually write on pen and paper.. my hands cramp up like crazy!

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  4. Ah, pen and paper. I have a pen and paper on the stand beside my bed. This would be on the off chance I actually think up something really clever to write on my blog.
    Needless to say, but the paper is blank and the pen is full:-)
    Have a peaceful weekend.
    In kindness, Gary.

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  5. I'm in the same boat. When I put pen to paper there are inevitably 'scribble outs'. And like Melissa, I'm so out of practice with writing by hand that even when I fill out forms at the doctor's office my hands start to cramp up. How lazy is that???

    I think many people are in that boat with us. My youngest is in Kindergarten and has some sensory discrimination issues. That is, he doesn't like to hold a pencil and write. He's perfectly fine if you let him type on the computer, but he just doesn't like the way writing feels. Maybe we're breeding it into our offspring?

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  6. Agreed! I used to be like a hard-core journal-writer and now I can't get through a page without my hand completely cramping up on me! Also I'm a lefty and my handwriting is absolutely horrid and pretty much illegible.
    Thank God for keyboards and spell check that's what I say!

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  7. I still keep in practice occasionally with old-fashioned snail mail letters to select friends, and the times I get the urge to write a scene or two while somewhere electronics-hostile, like the beach. And my work frequently involves note-taking and mind mapping which I still use pen & paper for. But for all that, I know I am way out of practice compared to how I used to be.

    What really scares me, though, is the speed with which I used to be able to both plan and write a few hundred words. I remember biology exams allowing a whole 40 minutes per question (choose 3 questions off the paper to answer in a 2 hour exam) and I used to write pages, plus diagrams! How the heck did I ever do that? I can only assume that whatever thoughts I dashed off back then wouldn't pass muster as anything more than a first draft nowadays, with greater expectations in a world where you can edit and correct without messy mark-ups.

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