Now, everyone has something at their house, but the stores are gone.
Shame.
Lately I've realized that a good number of people these days don't have a desktop or laptop PC anymore and just use a tablet or smartphone.. I find that hard to believe though...
...even some fairly simple things like sending an email and applying for jobs
online (really, anything where you'd need to write up a document of some kind) is a lot easier with a real keyboard and bigger screen.
Now, everyone has something at their house, but the stores are gone.
Shame.
Well, almost. In my area we still have a Micro Center, which was one of the major chains back in the day.
Stats (in this case) don't lie. Judging by the students at the college I work at, the vast majority use (or try to) their cellphones for everything, however, I still see a few toting laptops and tablets.
...even some fairly simple things like sending an email and applying for
jobs online (really, anything where you'd need to write up a document of
some kind) is a lot easier with a real keyboard and bigger screen.
People have been using cell phones to send email years before the iPhone came out. As for documents, it can be done, but I wouldn't want to put my thumbs through that kind of turture.
Mortar wrote to Nightfox <=-
Well, almost. In my area we still have a Micro Center, which was one
of the major chains back in the day.
Mortar wrote to Nightfox <=-
Stats (in this case) don't lie. Judging by the students at the college
I work at, the vast majority use (or try to) their cellphones for everything, however, I still see a few toting laptops and tablets.
...even some fairly simple things like sending an email and applying for jobs
online (really, anything where you'd need to write up a document of some kind) is a lot easier with a real keyboard and bigger screen.
People have been using cell phones to send email years before the
iPhone came out. As for documents, it can be done, but I wouldn't want
to put my thumbs through that kind of turture. To quote a line from an original Battlestar Galactica ep, "Give me the good old keyboard and
print out".
---
Synchronet End Of The Line BBS - endofthelinebbs.com
Now, everyone has something at their house, but the stores are gone.
Shame.
Well, almost. In my area we still have a Micro Center, which was one of the major chains back in the day.
While they are incredibly impressive, I still miss the mom n' pop feel
of a local computer store a mile away.
I'd think a Chromebook would be a great college tool - most of them
have wifi everywhere now, they're lightweight, long battery life...
...why have a laptop if you leave it at work?
The closest MicroCenter to me (it just opened) is 35 miles away. It's in the shadow of 3 former Fry's locations that served the area until they folded.
While they are incredibly impressive, I still miss the mom n' pop feel of a local computer store a mile away. Admittedly, much of that is nostalgia, like remembering buying my first mouse, buying a custom-build pentium...
(begging the question, why have a laptop if you leave it at work? But, that's a riddle for a different time...)
I've heard a lot of schools in the US don't teach typing anymore.
Although a lot of people tend to use smartphones for things these
days, I still find it surprising that schools would drop typing
classes. I feel like if more people took typing classes, people
might generally prefer a physical keyboard over using smartphones
for typing.
I'd never recommend a Chromebook. Any laptop that /requires/ you to be online to be useful is never a good idea, not to mention being restricted to Google's ecosystem.
Most school districts around here have you rent a Chromebook (and make sure to pay extra for the insurance because most kids don't take very good care of them!) for your kid starting in middle school (5th or 6th grade). I imagine there is no need for a typing class, as they probably learn by using a keyboard pretty much all the time. Both of my kids can type just fine, and they have never had an actual typing class. *shrug*
I've heard many people who learn typing on their own often tend to
do hunt & peck, and can get good at that, but I don't think that's
the optimal way. A typing class would teach how to do touch-typing,
by placing your hands on the home row & practicing moving your
fingers to where the keys are, and you eventually basically memorize
the key locations so you don't have to look at the keyboard when you
type. Unless someone is using software to learn touch-typing,
there's a chance they may be typing by hunt & peck.
Re: Re: The Decline of PCs
By: Mortar to poindexter FORTRAN on Wed Dec 17 2025 11:26 am
I'd never recommend a Chromebook. Any laptop that /requires/
you to be online to be useful is never a good idea, not to mention
being restricted to Google's ecosystem.
They work offline as well, and when they go EOL, they make great
linux laptops. :)
Re: Re: The Decline of PCs
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Mortar on Wed Dec 17 2025 07:45:14
I'd think a Chromebook would be a great college tool - most of them
have wifi everywhere now, they're lightweight, long battery life...
I'd never recommend a Chromebook. Any laptop that /requires/ you to be online to be useful is never a good idea, not to mention being restricted to Google's ecosystem.
There are things that I think a cell phone is fine for. I guess it's>things like content creation, photo & video editing, software development
Both of my high school kids (one senior (12th), the other a freshman (9th)) have had a Chromebook since about 6th grade, and can type just fine. Neither has had a class specific to typing only, but it's very possible that learning how to type is/was part of the curriculum without the need for a specific semester long class needed (probably a waste to dedicate half a school year to typing out sentences and paragraphs), as they use their Chromebooks for everything up to and including homework, tests, and school related emails.
You have to keep in mind computers are everywhere these days, whereas they were fairly new to the common household and pretty expensive back in the early to mid 90s where for probably /most/ people, their only access to a computer was a school or a library. All we really had back then was
So, to say that typing classes aren't needed because computers are
everywhere doesn't really make sense to me.
So, to say that typing classes aren't needed because computers are
everywhere doesn't really make sense to me.
I'm going off of actually having 2 kids and witnessing firsthand what they can do with computers at a young age, due to what they've learned in school /without/ a class specific to only typing. So it does makes sense to me.
Aren't you going off of what you've heard? I'm going to have to agree to disagree on this one. ;)
And my own experience (which I've mentioned a couple times now) -
I'll say it again: I was a hunt-and-peck typer until I took a typing
class, which dramatically improved my typing. I thought that was
fairly common..
So you're basing your own experience of a typing class you took ~30 years ago? Completely understand your point of view, now.
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