How to enter text on a mobile phone

It amazes me how many people have expensive and elaborate mobile phones and just use them to, well, make hone calls.

Last weekend, I traveled to Kalamazoo to visit friends and the woman I was traveling with had just received a new phone and I suggested she use the navigation application built into it to vector us in to the address.

Okay, I have to stop for a minute. This isn’t working. I was going to obscure the identity of the woman to avoid embarrassment. But I just realized that unless I reveal that woman as my wife, there’s another kind of embarrassment that could result.

So the woman was my wife, Jennifer. And the friends we were visiting were my son, Jeff, and his wife, Aimee.

There. All is disclosed. Now back to the story.

“How do you do that?” Jennifer asked, whereupon I realized that even though we were paying $9.95 extra or Verizon’s awesome vzw Navigator turn-by-turn direction service on her phone, she had no idea how to use it.

Oh, getting to the program was easy. It was entering data that had stumped her.

And then it dawned on me. No wonder she never texted. She didn’t know how to type on the phone. And I am convinced she is not alone.

Kids seem to get texting instinctively. For older folks, not so much.

So here’s a quick tutorial:

Now every carrier and every mobile phone handset is different. But in general, unless you have an iPhone or a BlackBerry or Treo with a miniaturized version of a real keyboard, entering text on a phone means you have to use a phonepad that has numbers and letters for each key.

I walked Jennifer through the process over a 40 minute period last Sunday as I drove and she tried to enter in our son’s address from the passenger’s seat.

Here are the issues we found.

Getting to the program – Most phones have a dedicated navigation menu key with arrows that move right and left, up and down. Pushing the center button means the same as enter, or okay. Push that center button and one screen pops up, usually messaging.

Push left or right and you get different screens. We pushed left until we got Verizon’s Get it Now screen where, scrolling down, we found Tools on the Go. We pushed okay and opened up the vzw program. “Those are a lot of steps,” she noted.

Using the program – Jennifer clicked through just fine, finding the “enter a location” area. Then we had trouble. To enter numbers, as in an address, just punch the numbers. But when it came to text, we had to use what’s called a soft key. There are two on most phones. One on the left, under the screen. The other on the right. Above those soft keys are meun choices. On the left was one labeled abc. She tapped that and we entered the change entry mode. This toggles off numbers and text. One option was called word. She clicked it. Bad choice. It guesses at the word you are trying to enter. It usually guesses wrong. So we backed out of there and chose abc, which enters numbers and letters. “This is ridiculous,” I heard her mutter.

Entering data – Back on the program, we had to enter street and city names. But each of those keys has a number and three or four letters under it. To enter “B,” for example, you tap the 2 key twice. To make a space, tap the # key. “How are we supposed to know that?” asked Jennifer, sounding still more frustrated. It’s a good question. Maybe it’s in the manual that came with the phone. But I have it in front of me and if it’s there, I can’t find it.

Deleting Characters – This is a problem, too. For there’s two ways to back out. A clear key is like a backspace, or delete key. End also stops what you are doing, but exits the entire program. Three times Jennifer hit end, only to loose what she had already entered and have to start over. “why doesn’t it just say delete?” she asked. Another good question.

Eventually, we got everything entered and the program flawlessly directed us right to Jeff’s doorstep.
On the way home that evening, we talked about texting. Again, I suspect lot of people aren’t using this because, well, all this mobile connectivity has happened so fast that it just bypassed a big chunk of the over 45 crowd. Not all, I know. But a lot of us.

I offered another lesson, showing her how to use that center nav button to get back to the Messaging screen. Enter a mobile number or highlight one from your contact book, selectable as a soft key option, and type in up to 160 characters and send them.

“For those taught to touch type, there’s something just plain weird abut having to hit a key four times to get an ‘S,’” groused my wife. I told her 14-year-old grandson can touch type texting. It’s an old brain, young brain thing, I’m sure. She didn’t like that answer.

The bottom line is, I suggested, breaking the chilly silense after a few miles, our phones can do more than make phone calls. For me, it’s awesome. Truly, I delight in each new feature.

My wife, though, isn’t as enamored.

“You know,” she said, “I appreciate learning how this all works. But anything this complicated seems to me to be a waste of time. I could have just called Jeff and gotten directions in about 30 seconds. I’m sticking to using my phone as a phone.”

Texting shorthand

4COL — For crying out loud

4EAE — Forever and ever

B4N — Bye for now

BOOMS — Bored out of my skull

CYAL8R — See you later

d00d — Dude

GNSD — Good night, sweet dreams

H2CUS — Hope to see you soon

H8 — Hate

ICBW — I could be wrong

LFTI — Looking forward to it

MEGO - My eyes glaze over

MGB - May God bless

MIRL — Meet in real life

n00b — Newbie

PU — That stinks

ROTFL — Rolling on the floor laughing

ROTFLUTS — Rolling on the floor laughing unable to speak

RU — Are you

T+ — Think positive

W/E — Whatever

ZZZ — Bored

Source: www.webopedia.com

And I hadn’t even got to teaching her texting shorthand before she told me MEGO.