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Use a finger on your phone? Oh no, you're old! Jill Gallone [Derby Evening Telegraph (England)]
[March 06, 2014]

Use a finger on your phone? Oh no, you're old! Jill Gallone [Derby Evening Telegraph (England)]


(Derby Evening Telegraph (England) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) "OMG, you're using your phone like an old person! You don't do it like that." These words of wisdom from my 15-year-old son left me reeling as I fumbled with my new (but secondhand) first ever smartphone, an iPhone 3Gs secured after an intense bidding battle on a well-known auction site.



"What do you mean, I'm using my phone like an old person?" I snapped, a little hurt. "You don't use your finger like that to scroll up and down - you use your thumbs!" Got that fellow old fogies? Thumbs.

"What, like an ape?" said my Chaddesden partner in index-finger crime Martin. "That's ridiculous. They don't half come out with some rubbish. I wouldn't let 'em get away with it!" Anyone unfamiliar with touchscreen smartphones (yes, there are people who don't have one, quite a few actually) may be confused. Say you're at one of those horrendous self-service checkouts where you have to touch the screen to make your choices. Do you use your index finger or thumb? The former I would imagine, well not on your smartphone.


Heaven forbid! "All kids use their thumbs," my eldest informed me. "Only old people use their finger. You type with your thumbs mum, look, like this." He typed a text at speed on his phone, two thumbs flying in harmony, and I felt, well, ancient frankly.

You could spend thousands on plastic surgery to trick people into thinking you're a decade (or two) younger, then end up blowing your cover the minute you place a wrinkly finger on your smartphone.

Do Sharon Osbourne, Kylie or even David Beckham use their thumbs to text and browse? I very much doubt it.

Unlike many of our agedefying celebs, I can't afford plastic surgery to hold back the years but I have been practising those hard- tomaster thumb skills on my snazzy but worn iPhone.

Don't chortle at my ageing technology if you've already upgraded to the IPhone 5. For me, any sort of smartphone is like moving from a Lada to a space rocket in one gigantic step. It's mesmerising. I'm treating it with so much tender loving care it's like having a whistling pet hamster in my handbag. Suffice to say, I have spent the last few years with what my sons call a "Nokia block" that survived being dropped down the toilet. It carried on working faithfully. Phenomenal.

It was only when the front started disintegrating due to heavy usage that I finally, grudgingly, admitted it was time for a change.

Until then I'd been glad to own a mobile a mugger would have been too embarrassed to steal. But I had to swap so came up with my Pounds 50 phone compromise.

I could never buy a Pounds 400 mobile. For a start I'm too clumsy (toilet incident!), too poor and I don't want the worry. A colleague's daughter had hers stolen on New's Eve and the thief ran up a giant bill within 24 hours. Right now in Derbyshire, people are stealing phones by simply asking for the time, then snatching them.

They better not try that on my iPhone! I've perfected a vice- like grip using only the force of my powerful thumbs. Just like an ape.

"Do Sharon Osbourne, Kylie or even David Beckham use their thumbs to text?" (c) 2014 ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved.

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