Giving some thought to how we use technology.
This is not so much a blog entry about technology as a prompting for some common sense. It is so easy to get enthralled by the "latest and greatest" gadget that we don't see some of its shortcomings. We can check our e-mail, catch up on the latest news and watch videos on several different devices, such as smart phones, tablets, laptops or desktop computers. But there are limitations to each of these machines.
I have observed many people typing on a touch-screen tablet, and cannot imagine that they would type as slowly on a regular keyboard. My smart phone has a slide-out keyboard, but my typing is still much slower and more error-prone, and I don't currently have spell checking on my mobile e-mail program.
So, we often tack on an automatic disclaimer to our outgoing mobile e-mail, asking recipients to excuse our typos. Perhaps we should use a different system.
My smart phone has impressive video playing ability, but the slower Internet connection makes it only acceptable as a time killer. I do keep up with some news headlines, but only via a customized iGoogle mobile portal page. Deeper exploration of news stories is left for podcasts or streaming news radio, something my phone is more adept at than regular broadcast radio.
Even laptops, with their ever-increasing power and screen resolution, can be less appropriate than a desktop PC system when it comes to intensive processes, such as large spreadsheets or video editing.
It's just a case of paying attention to our online tasks, and weighing the benefit of convenience against the time it takes with a given device.