Auto Correct… by JoAnn

An older woman holding a cell phone with question marks above her head.

Perhaps you know who invented it. Perhaps you enjoy using it every time you text. Or maybe, just maybe, you feel like me and hate auto-correct!

The concept of my cell phone automatically correcting a word that I have misspelled in a text is brilliant. Who wouldn’t want that? I certainly would appreciate the help. I think anyone would. But my problem is that it’s never that simple for me. Am I the only one who gets frustrated with auto-correct?

Having the correct spelling of a word show up for me to choose is terrific. What I don’t like is when a word, or even part of a sentence, is completely changed without my choosing. This means that if I am texting in a hurry and don’t notice the change, it will be sent to whomever I am texting. When this happens, I get highly frustrated.

I am a stickler for proper spelling. It goes back to my days of taking business courses in school, explicitly typing. Yes, the old-fashioned typing where you used the machine called a typewriter and a clean sheet of paper. When a mistake was made, a liquid similar to white paint was brushed over the error so it could be typed over. I always hated how messy the correction looked, so I strove to have the correct spelling. With today’s technology, the auto-correct I did not choose is that messy-looking white paint!

Even now, I want my text or email to look as pristine as my typed letters once looked. Perfect. Auto-correct, with its well-meaning concept, frustrates me more than it helps. It’s like a fly buzzing around my cell phone; only it’s inside my phone where I can’t swat it. Please share if there is a way to remove it from my phone.

The cell phone is undoubtedly my favorite of all my gizmos and gadgets. I would feel lost without it. I think that’s why I get so mad when it doesn’t react the way I think it should. It’s a tiny computer that pretty much does everything. But when it makes a mistake, I can become very unforgiving. Just thinking about it gives me a headache.

We are spoiled, or at least I am. I expect a gadget to perform perfectly 100% of the time. Is that possible of anything? Realistically no, of course not. So why does something that should be a minor problem bug me so much? Too bad my auto-correct can’t correct me.

I guess I will continue blaming my fat fingertip on my texting mishaps and let auto-correct have a break. Maybe I can slow down and use a skinnier finger to type. I enjoy texting too much to cut that out of my routine. So I will continue on, hoping to win the next round with that fly.