The Mobile Web -- not all it's cracked up to be!

Yesterday I attempted, just to say I had done it, to submit to my blog from a handheld device -- my wife's new ubertechno phone, a Motorola Q. As my texting experience is minimal, I knew it would take a while, even though the MotoQ sports a full QWERTY keyboard and I'm an accomplished typist (i.e., I know where all the keys are). I had only been browsing for about 15 minutes up to that point, but my eyes had begun to water and my temples had begun to throb from staring at the tiny Windows Mobile-enabled browser and waiting for what seemed like hours for the pages to load compared to my broadband connection at home.

After correcting myriad typos and cursing the AutoComplete feature that tried to finish every word for me after two letters, like those waiters in old sitcoms who would fill up a restaurant-goer's water glass after every sip, I tried to submit my post. But, the buttons were unwieldy, the interface foreign and my longsuffering long exhausted, so I screwed up somehow and the post never posted. I may try again sometime, but certainly not sometime soon.

Ultimately, it was a great experience. I definitely got a solid dose of what a lot of my Beginning Internet students face when they can't find the mouse arrow on a convoluted web page or are beseiged with the overload and frustration that comes with a new technology, so I'll have a renewed appreciation for what they're going through when I teach the class next week. It also put in perspective some of what I've been reading for my grad course this week about reading behaviors in the digital environment; whatever negative effects computer screens have on absorption and and concentration, this is tripled when attempting to learn to use a device like the one I was using.

On the upside, I did find myself texting a little faster by the end of it . . .