T minus 9

Remember the good old days?  When you could text & drive (legally)?  Ah, nostalgia!  Those were the days!!!

Before everyone and their mom had a smartphone, and before words like sexting existed, we were allowed to text while driving.  Of course, there were always the naysayers and grumblers, most of whom were just jealous that they didn't know how to send a text.

And regardless of how advanced mobile devices are now, and how much they (are supposed to) simplify our lives, most of these devices require the "two-handed text," or "thumb texting."  What is funny about this to me is that this is one of the very principles why these phones were created.  Texting was becoming more prevalent, and as more and more (and younger and younger) people began to text, they began to complain that texting on a Motorola RAZR...

...was becoming increasingly inconvenient, since users were sending more messages each month.  You know...

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just to type "hey where r u" IS pretty time consuming.  The part I hated most was the dreaded Question Mark (?).  I had to hit the 1 key seventeen times on my phone.

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And if you miscounted or got finger happy?  Start over!!

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*dammit*

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*shit!*

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*mother fucker!*

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*nevermind.  they'll figure out it's a question*

As challenging that was, most of us knew how to do it very quickly, and could probably do it with our eyes closed.  And as easy as it was to text on a device like the Samsung Blackjack...

...the first major smartphone not dedicated strictly to businesspeople for work purposes, you had to use two hands!  This was fine if you were sitting at school or in your cubicle.  But when you walked through the mall or down the street you had to use two thumbs AND look down at the screen because you didn't have as good of a feel for the buttons on this clumsy new phone.

At first, this wasn't a big issue; it was well worth the trade.  Immediately people began sending more texts than ever before.  While working at AT&T Wireless, I once saw a bill that accounted for over 17,000 texts sent and received in one billing cycle!  That averages just over 20 texts per minute, assuming the user texted 24 hours a day.

Fast forward 4 or 5 years, and here we are today.  You sure can't text on an iPhone...

...without looking at the screen (and for most of us, using two hands).

So while I immensely enjoy my cell phone, the new Blackberry Bold 9900...

...I do occasionally miss the days of T9 texting, for simplicity's sake.  And, of course, because it didn't matter if you were texting and driving because it wasn't against the law and no one knew you were doing it anyway.

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(Thanks for reading. Have a great day.)