If A Toddler Can Work an Iphone Why Can't I?

I shouldn't say that I couldn't operate an Iphone for certain. I suppose I could. I have had a Blackberry for almost two years and have even managed to make a few calls on it.

The New York Times reports that Iphones are now becoming many toddlers favorite toys and that many apps are being designed specifically for them.

I have suspected that this day would come. It seems that the easier products become for the others to use the more difficult I find them.

Kids have no fear of electronics. Maybe that's because they don't have to pay for them when they break. They certainly aren't the ones that have to call the customer service hotline when they malfunction, navigating a mine field of "press one if...." messages before they are finally connected to someone in Mumbai or Bangalore who is calling himself Teddy just so you can't learn his true identity.

Still I will get an Iphone as soon as Verizon starts selling them (which I hear will be just in time for my latest two year contract to upgrade arrives....apparently ATT equates Southern Illinois with outer Mongolia ). I will curse and my blood pressure will skyrocket until I come to peace with the thing. And I will end up barely tapping the resources of all the uses it has, probably never learnig what all the icons on its tiny screen represent.

Everything today has an icon instead of a label. Call me crazy but I have always found words easier to understand than hieroglyphics. Isn't that why we developed an alphabet in the first place? Every time I get a new automobile it takes me weeks to figure out what button regulates which feature I want to access because words have been replaced with icons.

I comfort myself with the belief that the real reason I have such trouble learning these devices is because they are designed so that any idiot can use them and the reason I cannot fathom them is because I am of superior (or at least average) intelligence.

These toddlers no matter how well meaning are making me feel inferior. I don't care how quiet it keeps them in public. They need to go back to doing something worthwhile in the abundant amount of free time they are given like figuring out how to open child proof lids for their parents and grandparents.