When You Know You’re Too Used To Technology

When You Know You're Too Used To Tech ImageSomething odd happened the other day. Be it the beginning stages of already reaching ‘a certain age’, or just being a bit weird; the jury’s out.

I was writing up some notes (pencil and paper style) whilst on a phone call with a client; the usual – noting down project lengths, word counts, initial rough pricing etc, when it happened. I wrote something in error.

No big deal – normal people just cross it out and carry on.

Not me – I, in a completely automatic move from years of muscle memory, saw my fingers unconsciously initiate the action of ‘command-z’ – or, for non-Apple users, the keyboard shortcut for ‘undo’.

I went silent for a couple of seconds trying to comprehend the madness of what I was trying to achieve! Undo, on an imaginary keyboard, the handwritten mistake on a paper notepad. It threw me a little for a few moments!

It’s a weird thing. I’m not alone either – I’ve known a few people that having been so used to touchscreens of various sorts, whilst reading a newspaper or magazine; start ‘pinching to zoom’ into things as if it were an iPad.

I guess it’s just the current phase in the technology revolution in being so familiar with what you use day in, day out – possibly the digital equivalent to the analogue ‘keeping your pencil behind your ear’ that so many people do. (Or at least, used to do – perhaps they all make their notes using Siri now – who knows).

One thing’s for sure though; it’s certainly something I’m going to be more conscious of in the future, and to remind myself that the pencil was here first, in all it’s wooden textured analogue glory.

Having said that, I did recently buy the Apple Pencil to use in conjunction with my recent purchase of an iPad Pro. So at some point in the near future, it’s probably safe to assume I’ll be writing a blog on ‘That Time I Tried To Plug My Analogue Wooden Pencil Into My Apple Lightning Charger’.

#facepalm

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *