Smartphone Spell Check Addiction – A Technological AA in the Making

Everywhere we go, it seems like it is a cultural norm to whip out our smartphones within seconds.  In the U.S., 62% of the people in the cell phone market have smartphones¹.   This is not just a market composed of business people.  It is a market full of people that love technology and being social, whether it’s grandma wanting to face time her grandkids or an executive working while on vacation.  The smartphone has evolved into a social being.  Without the smartphone, how convenient would it be to access Facebook or Twitter?

People go online to check their messages, chat with a friend, or play games.  Our “real” world has become dependent on the online world.  It has become so dependent that emailing a friend or acquaintance on a miniature screen is normal.  Letters are non-existent.  While the U.S. Post Office has seen a big portion of its income drop because of the online revolution, smartphone manufacturers are creating more fascinating devices that are capable of doing almost anything. 

Smartphones can be used as alarm clocks, radios, mini-computer, and the list goes on…. It can be programmed to check the spelling of your texts, emails, and posts and replace them with whatever it thinks you really mean.  This spell check feature is often seen as a given, but what would happen if it suddenly disappeared?  What if there were no longer smartphone spell checks? 

The auto-correct spelling feature of the smartphone has made many of us reliant on it for spelling.  Every time you type words incorrectly in an email or any other application, the auto-correct feature takes over and polishes up your mistakes.  The only time it really becomes a problem is when the auto-correct decides to change words you commonly use, like “of” with “if”.  Regardless of this little nuisance, the auto-correct seems to be a friend that you just can’t part with.   It has become so difficult to write a memo or a note without having to think of how to spell words we would normally assume would be auto-corrected. 

It is really hard to imagine a world without the smartphone’s spell check.  Although it does not seem to improve anyone’s spelling, it does save many of us from being ridiculed by peers or employers.  It may not correct the “than” and “then” or the “where” and “wear”, but it does stop us from “spaylling” words incorrectly… I mean “spelling”.   

Notes:

1. comScore.  comScore Reports September 2013 U.S. Smartphone Subscriber Market Share.   November 13, 2013.  Retrieved on March 11, 2014.  https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press_Releases/2013/11/comScore_Reports_September_2013_U.S._Smartphone_Subscriber_Market_Share