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Comment by Qem | Hacker News Reader

Sometimes, while using chatting apps like WhatsApp, I get annoyed by people that despite knowing perfectly how to read and write, seem incapable of doing so over the cellphone. They just keep using annoying audio messages. This gets me pondering if cellphones + AI tools like converting text in pictures to audio will eventually cause illiteracy to be fashionable again. Perhaps people will just stop bothering learn how to read and write, if their gadgets can act as the equivalent to personal scribes in antiquity.

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Interesting. Is this a trend away from holding knowledge in the local wetware?

Things that are much less common over my (long) lifetime:

-memorization of classic poetry and lines from literature

-memorization of tables for simple math operations (+ - * / )

-memorization of telephone numbers

-memorization of how to travel to different locations, even in a city

Is memorization of the alphabet next?

We're back to Plato and his dislike of writing. "If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written"

It's a difference of degree.

> Is memorization of the alphabet next?

There was this thing I read years ago about how teenagers in Japan don't know how to write a lot of kanji by hand, but they'll recognize and be able to use it when typing it in their phone (since the input is phonetic and it autocompletes to possible kanji).

I've had this same thought and even direct comment to friends. The answer I've gotten basically every time has been that they send audios because they're driving while they're responding.

Um, most phones will do speech-to-text...

So I think there's something more going on. I think maybe it's that text was the "default" communication medium, and speech is becoming the default.

And most phones, even after 12+ years of this feature, badly mangle spoken text when transcribing and require editing, while the audio stays intact when sent.

Fair. And the editing is hard to do while you're driving...

>They just keep using annoying audio messages.

Is this a regional/socioeconomic thing? I very rarely see people record and/or listen to voice recordings in public, and my friends certainly don't do it.

It seems to be younger people where I am. What's funny is they don't hold the phone to their ear like I would, they hold the phone with the screen facing them right in front of their faces. I assume that's because their generation don't really do phone calls anymore.

I've never used voice messages like the ones being talked about in this thread so I don't know if there's a particular reason they hold the phone that way

On the rare occasion I record an audio message, I hold it in front of my face. To me it feels like talking on a speaker phone in my brain and I hold my phone accordingly.

I know a few older adults who effectively cannot compose text. They can read just fine, they can talk, they just can't express themselves in written words. If they learned to, it was fifty years ago and they've spent their working lives doing things that didn't require it. In the little things where you need to write (a thank you card), they had a spouse cover for them.

I think it's probably relatively common, at least for some generations. Voice memo gets them past a very big source of anxiety.

or maybe typing on a touch screen sucks

Everything sucks without training.

I am faster on a touchscreen than most people are on a keyboard. I have seen teens who are ~50% faster than me.

It's just training.

Why do you compare speed to "sucking"? I don't care about the speed or efficiency, it just feels terrible.

On the other hand (on both hands ;) ) it feels wonderful to type on my thinkpad. I never compared speed or accuracy, it's just undeniably much more comfortable.

I don't think I will convince you, but that is training as well.

Yes, in the beginning, it feels terrible, because you hit the glass too hard, but after some time you adjust your tapping and hit the screen with the minimal force necessary to register a touch.

Yea, it will probably never feel as comfortable as your thinkpad, but once you get the hang of it, it isn't the difference between "wonderful" and "sucking".

What do you mean "in the beginning"? For how long do you think I've been using a phone lol?

There's no convincing, it's like comparing old, low quality shoes that don't even fit you to my perfect pair of shoes.

I can use all 10 fingers with minimal movement, I get immediate feedback, I don't have to hold anything. There's no training that can replace that. Typing on a touch screen will never not such.

Smartphones have built-in dictation. And having to listen to audio messages sucks. As does reading all-lowercase messages without punctuation.

My wife’s an editor and writer and uses voice to text all the time when messaging on her phone.

I think OP means sending actual voice memos. Yeah, I’d just never listen to most of those. I’m not the sort who has AirPods in my ears all day, so stuff with audio in messaging apps usually gets skipped.

I can swipe with Google gboard faster than I can type on a real keyboard (and I'm a programmer and can type), but I tried that google keyboard ("Gboard") on my iPhone and it was awful - slow to respond, lots of mistakes. (Until fairly recently, Apple didn't allow third-party keyboards at all, and iPhone still doesn't allow third-party keyboards access to all the API's, so they're a bit hamstrung). (Note: on GrapheneOS, I block Gboard from all network access, so it doesn't learn from my mistakes or new words, but it's still light years beyond running it on iPhone.)

So it might be a platform-specific thing. I definitely find typing on an iPhone to be rather painful, but swiping on Android is very, very fast.

I've been using swipe on Android for almost a decade and it still features me. Sometimes it works well. Other times it mangles almost every word in a sentence. I've sent thousands of embarrassing messages over the years, but I can't imagine doing regular typing all the time.

I do it with my Buddhist priest bc it helps to feel more connected

Yeah, no, you're just annoyed people aren't texting, it has nothing to do with literacy. Audible user interfaces are great but they don't remove the need for text.

Huh did you ever stop and consider some people enjoy speaking and listening to voices more than text?

I know I do (with certain friends, depending on context).

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