The pen mightier than the key board

One of my main reasons for choosing the Galaxy S as my new phone was that it came with swype as an input method. I'd tried "shape writer" on the ipod before, and was very impressed with the speed at which one could write-much faster and in a more comfortable manner than with normal phone keys, tapping a virtual keyboard, or even I reckon with a  qwerty phone keypad (though I admit I haven't actually tried that). What I wanted was something that could come as close as possible to using a computer keyboard as possible. However, now that I have been using it for a little while,i realize no phone mechanism ever will, but that swype instead offers something else. It IS fast, but really is more comparable to writing with a pen than with a keyboard, and this is the point. Writing with a pen was much slower, and this, coupled with the difficulty in erasing mistakes, meant a completely different writing style was required. The cost and 'permanence' of words meant thoughts had to be much more collected and considered before they could be put to paper.  I often wonder how I managed to write essays etc. in school without the aid of backspace, and having to laboriously form every letter. Compared with writing on a computer it seems that one's thought are continually held back-wanting to rush onto the next sentence, but the first words of the current one are still being completed!

This makes me realize that writing on a computer, while not necessitating careless, throw away and a  stream of consciousness style of writing,  does encourage it. By contrast, writing with a pen, or now swype, encourages more thoughtful and succinct prose, since the extra effort increases the need for maximum efficiency. There are of course times when a gushing of words is suitable, in story telling or more descriptive passages, which need to sweep the reader doing and envelope him or her in the narrative; but for article and in my case blog writing, I think the slower ' manual' style is optimum.  Talk is cheap, and typing in a keyboard can make writing so as well, but there is something about having to craft and carve each letter of every word, that brings home their value.

There is also something graceful about writing with swype - the motion and drift as one creates swirling patterns of meaning. In fact sometimes there is the temptation during complicated words to get carried away with the shape rather than meaning of the word- trying to form and finish it with more flourish than accuracy. Also, like with predictive sms, there are the occasional humorous or even jarring non-sequiturs when the tool throws up unintended words, like technological freudian slips, or like when someone finishes another person's sentence (it just threw up "semtex" :-) but having seriously misread where they were going with it. Ok, maybe not what you want to happen too often, but a nice little mental prod when it occasionally happens!

Posted from phone via Blogaway (so excuse any typos!)