Am I the only person in my generation who never learned to type on a number pad? It wasn’t the only thing I didn’t recognize from the “test”, but it stuck out to me.
More substantively: I never owned a cell phone growing up, even though I was at the right age when they became a common thing for teenagers to have. It wasn’t a money thing, nor household rule, as my sisters got phones when they were in high school. The biggest reason was probably just how I communicate. I wasn’t big into IM services either, and I preferred email or face-to-face, or a (landline) phone call if it was an urgent matter.
Then there was also my adolescent brain thinking I was making a bold counter-culture statement by steadfastly resisting the march of technology. In reality, I was probably just being a pain in the neck for my friends and family, and I probably unnecessarily endangered myself at least once.
I did finally, begrudgingly, get an old hand-me-down flip-phone in my final year of university, but that was out of necessity, and I used it to make maybe only a dozen calls the 2.5 years I had it before getting a smart device.
To bring it full circle: I did try sending a text message with that flip-phone exactly once, at the insistence of my family. That message was predictably a garbled mess, and to this day my sisters still wonder how I managed to get a number to appear in the middle of the “word”.
I have a number of other somewhat amusing stories about people’s reactions to my lack of a cellphone, but this post is long enough already.
I am a younger millenial and didnt have a cell phone until they got smart but most of the people I knew in highschool had blackberries or their knockoffs which had full keyboards. I still passed the capatcha though.
It’s called T9 typing btw. I’m old enough (30) to have had a few phones with buttons myself before the smartphone era gained momentum. I never got really good at it (didn’t text much). My older sister by a few years is a racer at T9 typing though. I remember her phone was making clicking noises at insane rates.
Am I the only person in my generation who never learned to type on a number pad? It wasn’t the only thing I didn’t recognize from the “test”, but it stuck out to me.
How did you text?
Briefly: I didn’t.
More substantively: I never owned a cell phone growing up, even though I was at the right age when they became a common thing for teenagers to have. It wasn’t a money thing, nor household rule, as my sisters got phones when they were in high school. The biggest reason was probably just how I communicate. I wasn’t big into IM services either, and I preferred email or face-to-face, or a (landline) phone call if it was an urgent matter.
Then there was also my adolescent brain thinking I was making a bold counter-culture statement by steadfastly resisting the march of technology. In reality, I was probably just being a pain in the neck for my friends and family, and I probably unnecessarily endangered myself at least once.
I did finally, begrudgingly, get an old hand-me-down flip-phone in my final year of university, but that was out of necessity, and I used it to make maybe only a dozen calls the 2.5 years I had it before getting a smart device.
To bring it full circle: I did try sending a text message with that flip-phone exactly once, at the insistence of my family. That message was predictably a garbled mess, and to this day my sisters still wonder how I managed to get a number to appear in the middle of the “word”.
I have a number of other somewhat amusing stories about people’s reactions to my lack of a cellphone, but this post is long enough already.
I am a younger millenial and didnt have a cell phone until they got smart but most of the people I knew in highschool had blackberries or their knockoffs which had full keyboards. I still passed the capatcha though.
What’s odd is I instantly recognized how to type on that type of phone, but I’m from roughly gen Z.
It’s called T9 typing btw. I’m old enough (30) to have had a few phones with buttons myself before the smartphone era gained momentum. I never got really good at it (didn’t text much). My older sister by a few years is a racer at T9 typing though. I remember her phone was making clicking noises at insane rates.