From typing to swiping

My Dad would swear at his computer by stating empahtically, he was an "Underwood man". For many of us, typing class was a required course, a modern technology from pen and paper. Underwood was the Apple of the time and like the personal computer of today, a typewriter was in every home.

Correcting mistakes was not as simple as cut, paste or delete. We used the backspace key, whiteout and strips that were placed over the wrong letter, or a typewriter eraser that usually smeared more than it erased. There was no saving unless you had carbon paper in between the pages. But this only afforded you a copy of your work, a hard copy to file. We used all 10 fingers, although some typed "hunt and peck" style, with two or three fingers.

Fast forward and along with penmanship, keyboarding skills are quickly becoming obsolete. Students find it easier to text than to type out their work. They claim it is faster and they are more accurate. The two finger process is now being reduced to one and the latest technology uses swiping across the keyboard. Letters and words are memorized by the smart keyboard as you work. 

I am not sure how this will affect our word count and accuracy, but soon enough we will just say the word and the keyboard will type for us, correct it, email it and file it in google docs. For those of us with arthritis, it sounds like a dream come true. 

My Dad's Underwood typewriter holds a place of honor on my bookshelf. His great grandkids marvel at its mechanical behavior and the letters that magically appear on a piece of paper that rolls up and down. Watch this video and ask yourself. Will young people even know what a typewriter is in the coming decade?