OneGuyFromBarlick

A nib at the bottom of Today's copy of The Times tells us that:
"Young people's reliance on phones and other mobile devices means they are losing the ability to type. Teachers say they are shocked at their poor keyboard skills."
And yet I've been reading elsewhere that young people are avoiding answering phone calls and prefer to message each other by texting etc. The aversion is said to be due to anxiety that phone calls bring bad news.
I don't know who to believe!

I see we've moved on from the complaint that keyboards were destroying the ability od people to produce good handwriting.....

Nice touch that this came from a "nib".

I came across this today from George Orwell's 1984.

"The thing that he was about to do was to open a diary. This was not illegal (nothing was illegal, since there were no longer any laws), but if detected it was reasonably certain that it would be punished by death, or at least by twenty-five years in a forced-labour camp. Winston fitted a nib into the penholder and sucked it to get the grease off. The pen was an archaic instrument, seldom used even for signatures, and he had procured one, furtively and with some difficulty, simply because of a feeling that the beautiful creamy paper deserved to be written on with a real nib instead of being scratched with an ink-pencil. Actually he was not used to writing by hand. Apart from very short notes, it was usual to dictate everything into the speak-write which was of course impossible for his present purpose. He dipped the pen into the ink and then faltered for just a second. A tremor had gone through his bowels. To mark the paper was the decisive act. In small clumsy letters he wrote:"

A very basic "Barbie" phone has been suggested. Calls, text and a single game only. No smart features. Can't see any young lads taking this up. Also, I think this has been tried before. Problem is the genie is out of the bottle as parents have been giving five and six year old kids smart phones for a few years now.

"the genie is out of the bottle"
That's the key phrase Ian and it applies to so many 'improvements' that turn out to be handicaps.
I fear it is too late and nothing will be done. I thank god there was nothing like this when I was young.... we learned about how to tie knots and woodcraft instead!

It is only this year that our grandson Alex (11) has had a phone, it was bought so that we can let him know if any of us are running late to collect him from school. He lives too far away to walk home.

He only uses it to message anyone of us if he needs to or if we need to call him. He is too busy playing basketball, he does like his ipad to play games with his school friends but one rule we have is that we have to know who he is talking to.

He loves doing "man" things as he calls it, whittling wood with his pen knife, using tools under supervision - including an axe to chop wood with one of our neighbours............

Micks iphone 7 has finally bit the dust today, it will not charge so I have taken the plunge and got myself a new one - iphone 13 - I refuse to pay for the latest models. Mick is going to have my iphone 12 - you might ask how he uses a smart phone whilst being blind - he uses Siri to make his calls and send messages, she is also very obliging at telling how much charge is in his battery and what time it is - shes a good woman...........

I take it that Sin is an electronic aid......

I think the word was Siri, Stanley, not sin!