A common joke amongst the younger generation is that the older generations find it difficult to learn how to send an SMS message. Although it may initially be a confusing process the science behind the sending process is quite simple and shouldn’t take too long to get the hang of. Most phones have predictive text or a text dictionary inbuilt which can also make the sending of a message much easier.
On a standard mobile phone there is a numeric keypad which has letters of the alphabet allotted to each number. The button for the number ‘1’, for example, may be allotted the letters ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’; the number ‘2’ is allotted the letters ‘D’, ‘E’, and ‘F’, and so on. The logic behind this equation of letters with numbers is that you can hit a number key a certain number of times and this will bring up a letter on the screen. For instance, to bring up the letter ‘F’, you would hit its corresponding number, ‘2’, three times (as ‘F’ is the third letter allotted to the number ‘2’).
If you do not have predictive text set on your phone, you will have to spell each word of the SMS out by working through each letter (by hitting the corresponding number the necessary amount of times). If you do have predictive text you will only have to hit each number once. Predictive text works with an inbuilt dictionary which gives you a selection of words which match the combination of keys you have hit – for instance, hitting ‘1’, ‘1’, ‘2’ may show you the example of ‘bad’ or ‘ace’. Using the navigation arrows or buttons you scroll through the options until you select the word you want.
On a standard mobile phone there is a numeric keypad which has letters of the alphabet allotted to each number. The button for the number ‘1’, for example, may be allotted the letters ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’; the number ‘2’ is allotted the letters ‘D’, ‘E’, and ‘F’, and so on. The logic behind this equation of letters with numbers is that you can hit a number key a certain number of times and this will bring up a letter on the screen. For instance, to bring up the letter ‘F’, you would hit its corresponding number, ‘2’, three times (as ‘F’ is the third letter allotted to the number ‘2’).
If you do not have predictive text set on your phone, you will have to spell each word of the SMS out by working through each letter (by hitting the corresponding number the necessary amount of times). If you do have predictive text you will only have to hit each number once. Predictive text works with an inbuilt dictionary which gives you a selection of words which match the combination of keys you have hit – for instance, hitting ‘1’, ‘1’, ‘2’ may show you the example of ‘bad’ or ‘ace’. Using the navigation arrows or buttons you scroll through the options until you select the word you want.