My phone is no longer behaving appropriately.

What I mean by that is that I try to steal "down moments" when I am sitting somewhere between activities to rough out blog posts. I accomplish this largely by using the voice-to-text function, because it's much faster than my efforts to type on a phone screen.

The current problem is that my phone no longer seems to be "listening."

I talk, and it no longer types. Or... it sometimes types, but very badly, coming up with things that make Chinese instructions for assemble-it-yourself furniture sound like literature.

I've tried a number of suggested fixes, but so far the outcome has been the same. My phone refuses to listen.

And that's not because I am saying anything offensive!

I discovered — more or less by accident — that IF I SHOUT REALLY LOUDLY my phone still listens. Evidently, it has lost most of its "sense of hearing."

Maybe I just dropped the phone one too many times, and there's a loose wire somewhere... although I don't get the sense that very many of these devices even have wires, anymore.

The long and the short of it is that my "most convenient" approach to starting/creating blog posts has now gone by the wayside. And no, I'm not going to just go out there and "get a new phone!"

Whereas I appreciate that some people live in worlds where money grows on trees, I haven't yet found one of those worlds!

The whole experience makes me reflect on the (original) notion that technology is suppose to help us and make life easier. I suppose it does to some extent, but that often comes at the "hidden cost" that we are required to use that technology on its terms, not on our terms.

Which I find to be a little bit sucky, quite frankly!

In order for something to be truly helpful it needs to integrate seamlessly into how we live our lives, rather than require us to change OUR routines in order to benefit from that technology.

That was another idea I remember working with, back in my IT days: Human-Centric Design. It was often overlooked or swept somewhat under the rug in favor of PROFIT-Centric Design.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for free market enterprise and capitalism... but shouldn't "making customers happy" be somewhere near the top of your list of objectives?

Maybe I just missed something, somewhere.

In the meantime, I suppose I will have to waste some time I don't really have on doing more in-depth research on why my phone is no longer able to hear me. And no — for the benefit of the peanut gallery — it's not the mic that's out... it works just fine for making phone calls!

Clearly, there's some aspect of this I haven't thought of...

Thanks for coming to visit, and do leave a comment if you feel so inclined! This is "social" media, after all, so it helps everyone when we make the effort to BE social with our fellow content creators!

=^..^=

---

Posted with proof of brain