Image by ha11ok from Pixabay
I'm writing this on a new app that I'm trying out. It's called Winston and it is a typewriter app. That is, it mimics a typewriter complete with typing sounds, ding when we get to the end of the line, and inability to delete mistakes; instead one must backspace and cover the mistake with an x, just as we did back in the typewriter days. Well, I use "we" universally as in society, but you probably weren't there in those days—neither was I. Typewriters were still around when I was a kid, and still common enough that hearing the typing sound from somewhere in any office I entered was not uncommon, but I never personally used them. Computers had become cheap enough that the switch from typewriters to computers was already underway. My mom always preferred a typewriter—typing papers for college kids was how she made extra money when I was a kid—but my dad bought in to computers as soon as he could, and that's what I learned to type on. And at school, typing class had just switched from typewriters to computers a few years before, so I missed that. I did still learn to double space between sentences. That's a habit I've mostly dropped in the years since.
But I digress.
The past several years has seen a resurgence of interest in typewriters. This app was produced by none other than actor Tom Hanks who is something of a typewriter lover. There are several other typewriter apps available too, both for Mac and Windows. And hipsters everywhere have started buying typewriters again. It would be easy to dismiss the trend as Boomers holding on to the past and hipsters yearning for something "uncool" to set them apart from the crowd. But I think there is something to it. Or something beneath it, anyway. Hmmm... not being able to erase what I wrote and rewrite it is annoying. But then again, I commonly write longhand and I'm not annoyed by the inability to erase mistakes there. Maybe it's because my brain assigns them different contexts. In the context of handwriting I expect not to be able to edit and so I accept it, but in the context of typing I expect to be able to easily edit and so the inability to do so annoys me.
Or something like that. But again, I digress.
There has been increasing recognition over the past dozen years that computers distract us. Our minds were not made for multitasking. We can't actually think of two things at the same time. What we do instead when we think we are multitasking is switch between things really fast. Think of thing A, then quickly jump to thing B, then quickly jump back to thing A, and so on. There is some evidence that women better than men at this kind of pseudo-multitasking, nevertheless both sexes suffer in their output when they try to do it. There is a mental cost to all this switching. Whenever we jump from one task to another, there is some "recovery" time where we have to remember what we were doing in the task we just switched to. This might just be a fraction of a second for some things, but it might be far longer for others. At any rate, it adds up.
There is the general distraction of the computer itself. Playing in all the apps and getting the urge to play in still other apps while we are playing in the previous apps. Note I include games in those apps. The internet just makes it worse. How many people browse the net with so many tabs open in their tab bar they can't even read the titles of them? If we were all being honest, probably most of us.
Then there is the distraction of the writing apps. Instead of just typing, we waste time editing as we go. Erase a sentence and rewrite it. Move a paragraph back a few. Should this be in quotes or set it italics? Hmm... or maybe set in bold? Let's pause and run spell check. Hmm.. does this word need a hyphen? Semicolon or em dash?
Editing is important, don't get me wrong, but it's not writing. Again, we find ourselves multitasking.
I'm guilty of it as you all are. Even as I write this, I keep thinking of ways I can say what I just wrote a little better, or of something I want to add to the previous line. I'm editing in my head, so even in the forced single-task environment of this typing app, my mind is trying to multitask. It's hard not to. But I think we have to trust the process and trust that when we do go back to edit things, those same or similar thoughts of improvement will still be there.
Anyway.
I think I'm losing my point. Probably in part because of what I just mentioned—my mind is trying to multitask here and it is distracting me from what I actually want to say and causing me to lose my focus. I probably should edit this, but I think I'm going to post it as is, just to preserve my first steps in this
app.
The app! That's right... I forgot. There are some options here that I haven't played around with yet. Also, I don't know how this saves... I suppose it saves as a simple txt file, but it would be interesting if it saved as a pdf to preserve the look of a typewritten sheet. At any rate, this is an interesting experience. Will I use it again? I don't know. While I do like the idea of an environment that forces me to just type by taking away my ability to edit, the UI of this app (I'll take a screenshot so you can see) is hokey enough that that itself may keep me from coming back. Then again, it got me to write all this, so that's something.
Addendum: After writing the above, I looked up the app info. Tom Hanks did the typewriter app on the iPad. This one was done by someone else. Also, this app saves in a strange proprietary format that is not plain txt. Luckily it allows us to copy everything so I did that and pasted it into my WordPerfect 4.2 environment for editing. For editing, I fixed all the spelling mistakes, added a few missed words, and changed a few words to improve clarity, but otherwise didn't add anything.
No, it's not the old DOS WordPerfect; I just fiddled with the settings of a different writing app to make it look this way.
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David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. |
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I love those antique things! I had an aunt years ago that had one and I loved to get into it and mess around lol the sounds of it are great! I also love the sound of the old school 1990’s keyboards that are loud as fuck lol makes it sound like you’re doing crazy amounts of work!
Typing without being able to edit is tricky indeed but I think I could get used to it. I’ve had a bunch of typos just writing this lol
Good call. Those early mechanical keyboards were almost as loud as typewriters. In my memory they had more of a hollow echo sound whereas a typewriter is more like a punchy staccato. But yeah, very similar in that they were both noisy.
I'm getting a little more used to not being able to correct mistakes while I type. Trying to ignore them (because I have to) is using a new muscle.
Thanks for reading!
!PIZZA
Didn't know there was an app for that! The typewriter reminds me of the movie "The Shining"😉 A stylish tool and I like it, but it didn't seem to catch on in Japan because we could only type the alphabet with it.
I have been thinking a lot about multitasking lately. When I have my computer open, I always have more than 10 tabs open, and before I can complete one task, my attention is diverted to something else. It seems like I end up taking longer than necessary to finish everything.
I remember playing around with grandma's old... well hell, I can't remember the make. I'd know it if I saw it, and it ain't the one in the picture.🤔
!PGM
!PIMP