Has the QUERTY Replaced the Home Row Keys?

Read any poignant Tweets or intriguing Facebook posts lately? I shudder to think that this will become the new opening line for those who have abandoned the book store or library for the local wifi hot spot. Its true, we have all become more accustomed to our smartphones (which only makes us look semi-smart by using them, none of us came up with the idea for the technology we hold in our hands) while slowly and painlessly we adapt our lives around them.

I have coined a new term, "Thumbsters"; you can start saying it when you see young people on their smartphones looking all smart and stuff. Spread the word like wildfire, the definition comes from people who use their thumbs to type, hence the keyboard named "QWERTY" on your smartphone. Thumbsters are all around us, at traffic lights, in line waiting impatiently because the grocery store isn't 4G yet and usually where loitering used to be frowned upon. "NO THUMBING ALLOWED". That sounds bad doesn't it? The term Thumbsters isn't meant to be derogatory, when you send a text or Tweet using your thumbs it implies what you are doing, that's all. If you type with your index finger then you're a... I'm sure somebody will be able to complete the sentence. Either way, you're not typing with your fingers as if you had all ten of them on the home row keys of a computer. ASDFJKL; (Remember those from typing class?)

Visit your local library and you'll see tons of books that can be checked out and taken home to read. Books that you pay taxes for, yep, you forgot about that perk didn't you. As you walk past the Vampire section and make your way past all the pretty people who don every one of the magazine covers you'll find yourself in the book section, do not be alarmed, they are just words, they cannot hurt you, their only aim is to educate you, well, that may harm some of us. Pick a book, or let it pick you, open it up and start to read. This activity is called reading, and guess what!? You can still use your thumbs for this learned behavior; it's a thumb thumb for everybody!

I think that people have forgotten how to read, if it's more than a quip, we get bored, slang isn't just common place for speech anymore, now you have to acronym everything. KWIM (Know What I Mean). Pretty soon we'll all be clicking our heads to the right for a new song, see the movie A.I. if you're not sure about that last part. When did cracking the spine of a book loose its luster? Kid's books have colorful artwork with shiny covers and are housed in a fun and inviting area, whether it's at the book store or the library. The adult section, blah, books look the same when you turn them spine out. The only time you see the front cover of a book is when it's on the Bestseller rack.

Technology is supposed to enhance our lives, not take over. Who will write the next literary masterpiece? Are we just going to rely on the same familiar names to fill the book shelves, don't we all have the great American novel hidden somewhere inside each one of us? I feel we do, we all have a story to tell, characters that haven't been seen or heard before, tales that could insight a spark of genius. You can't get that kind of inspiration from a box that says: 300 characters max.

I don't read as much as I'd like to, I know we all have busy lives and my list of excuses probably equals the shopping or to do list in length. I do read articles more often because of my friends on Associated Content and sometimes their information is more up to date and current events are so current now that the evening news looks like an archaic attempt to inform Rip Van Winkle. But reading a book shouldn't be a pastime, it should be an anticipated event. Reading is supposed to be fun; the whole idea is to transport you to another place. We all want an escape every now and then right?

You don't have to write the next great book, or maybe you want to. The point of this whole exercise was to insight a reading riot. Summer is almost over for some and reading will feel like a chore to those who have to return to school, but for those who forgot what a bookmark is for (it's the same on a smartphone, its designed to save the page) you should venture somewhere books are sold or lent and remind yourself what its like to absorb words instead of quickly spellchecking them before you tap Send.