For up-and-coming millennials who are searching for a career that will be a wide-open field and pay big bucks, I recommend you become hand surgeons. Sometime in the next twenty years or so, all the millennials will be stricken with carpal tunnel syndrome and crippling arthritis from the constant repetitive motion stress on their poor texting thumbs.

I was drug into the age of technology against my will, but I do admit there are some advantages to it. Texting, however convenient for the texter, is not one of them. Up until recently, I did not text. Then people started texting me because I got a smartphone which came with texting. Nevertheless, just because I have the capacity for texting doesn’t mean I want to use it. Then people who were texting me became upset when I ignored their texts. Let me be clear. I didn’t ignore them to be a jerk. I ignored them because, for the most part, I didn’t even know the texts were there. Since I am not glued to my phone and only rarely think to check it for messages, it can be days (weeks) before I realize someone texted me. To those people who think I’m rude for not responding, I apologize. Next time you absolutely have to reach me, do it the old-fashioned way—call me. (Although I don’t often check the voicemail on my phone, either.)

Now, to make things even more frustrating, it seems I’m not receiving some texts in a timely manner, or at all. I’ve had several instances in which someone texted me, “Did you receive my last text?” The second and first texts came together. Another time, someone texted me an important piece of information that never got delivered.
Anyway, so now I text when I have to. But only when I have to. For me, it is a chore to have to type a message on that itty-bitty little console, which invariably messes up what I am trying to say, so it only takes me ten times longer to text than it does to email or . . . oh, I don’t know . . . phone someone. Of course, it is a perfect way for introverts like me to communicate without actually having to talk to people. But I don’t text with my thumbs. No, I carefully hunt and peck each tiny little character with my oversized fat index finger. This is frustrating and slow. I may as well have skipped typing class. This is why I can’t understand people with their phones permanently affixed to their hands, their thumbs flying over the tiny keyboards all day.

So, having learned I can text, I also learned I can respond to Facebook and email on my phone when I don’t have access to my beloved(?) computer. However, I have the same dilemma of having to tap out my response on that miserable, miniature keyboard. And I invariably mess something up. One of my friends posted on Facebook (in great detail) about a night she spent in the ER. Right after her post was one from another friend who was celebrating her wedding anniversary. I accidentally sent CONGRATULATIONS to the first friend. I didn’t realize my mistake until a while later when I tried to answer my second friend. I can only wonder what my first friend thought at my congratulating her for being in the ER.

As if I don’t embarrass myself enough with technology, I decided to try to get “with it” and add those cute little emojis to my messages. The first time I did it, I accidentally sent happy faces to a friend who had posted about her dog dying. Talk about wanting to crawl into a hole! Of course, I apologized, but still . . . sometimes new-fangled things just weren’t meant for dinosaurs like me.

But I digressed from my first thought, which isn’t at all unusual with me. Hand surgeons are going to be in high demand in a few years. But will there be anyone in the next generation without crippled thumbs who can operate?