#821 Zombie Texting

The other day I was waiting in line at a busy coffee shop. A young person was ahead of me and I noticed some movement in the area of his right hand.
It, his hand, was near his hip and he had a phone in it. The movement I detected was his thumb blazing across the little slider keypad thing.
He was texting.
Worse, he was touch-texting.
You remember touch-typing, where you type without looking at the keyboard? I’ve never been able to do it. So I felt doubly amazed that he was able to text and not look. But text he did.
And he managed to carry on a stilted conversation with his companion at the same time. The really amazing thing was he was doing it with his thumb.
I suppose you get dexterous that way handling the controllers of video games. Most people have no ability to manipulate their thumbs so accurately. We are lucky just to oppose with it every now and again. Complete no motions more complicated than a grasp.
Or possibly a clutch.
I’ve trained mine to bang an occasional space bar on my keyboard. When it comes to texting I’m as uncoordinated and ungraceful as a football player in high heels.
But these kids have trained it to perform like an extra index finger.
It makes sense. Look back to all the video game controllers they’ve had since birth. They require a deft touch with a thumb. Tiny toggles and joysticks, multiple buttons to slash maim or fire. Thumb like a zombie, pushing, pressing, sliding.
You don’t think it would be easy to do well at Grand Theft Auto, that amazing portrayal of digital despair, if you didn’t have agile thumbs, do you? The digital desolation would be hard to be destructive in without dexterous digits.
So now they can put that power to good use—texting in public places. Give them that feeling of a controller when they’re out in the bright lights of the real world. I’m thinking they do it because they feel shy and awkward around live, in-the-flesh people.
When it comes to handling social situations they’re all thumbs...
America, ya gotta love it.