texting woes

It's amazing that in the last ten years smart phones have gone from something only early-adopters use to something that basically every adult uses and understands.  This has had almost as great a fundamental shift in my everyday life as gaining regular access to the Internet in the mid to late nineties.  I have run up against a couple of personal limitations in using mobile devices to text that I'd like to present.

First, I've been slow to adopt emojis.  This isn't because I think I'm above using emojis.  I like how you can distill a much larger thought into a simple image.  The problem is that I'm not always adept at identifying what emotion or idea a specific emoji is supposed to convey.  I brought this up with a friend a while ago, and took a look at the emojis I have used on my personal phone at that time.  As you can see from the image below, it's not a lot.  I just frequently figure it's safer not to guess on what a specific emoji is supposed to mean.

Second, the combination of auto-correct and my clumsy thumbs has conspired to make me look like an illiterate dunderhead to those I am texting or messaging.  I'm constantly seeing misspellings or entirely wrong words in the messages I send out after they're sent.  Some of this is that I need an editor for my communications on a good day.  At least some of it has to be that my phone enjoys making me look like an idiot, however.

I know a lot of people typo things on their phones.  I seem to be far worse than the average, however.  It's to the point where I'm sure I've lost a few notches of respect from a handful of people who have to think, "That's the wrong 'their' for the third time in a row!"

The trade-offs of emojis creating an ambiguous message and me making me sound like a toddler mashing keys on a keyboard are worth the benefits I get from my phone.  It's just not all cupcakes and unicorns.