I am fully in favour of technologies that make our lives easier. A little effort saved here, a little less time spent there, and I can have much more time to focus on productive activities like blogging, watching The Wire and coming up with witty new euphemisms for sex with which to impress people in the pub.

This is why I quite like predictive text on my mobile phone. With me no longer being in my teens, texting can take a while if you need to select every single letter. So I like the idea of the phone guessing what I am trying to say. It saves time.

I tried to send a text to a few friends to see if they fancied meeting for a pint at the pub later that evening.

I looked at the text before I pressed send, and it read, “Fancy a shot at the local later?”

For some reason my phone had decided that I should go out drinking shots, rather than pints. It was judging me. They say that binge drinking is a problem in today’s society, and yet here was my phone actively suggesting that I ditch the nice quiet pint with friends in a local pub, and go straight for the tequila and sambuca. It was almost as if it has been reading this blog yesterday.

Luckily, predictive text has the option to select the next word that fits the keys you have pressed. So I ignored the kind invitation to fire straight into the spirits and pressed ‘Next’.

My text message read, “Fancy a riot at the local later?”

What the fuck? Now my phone wanted me to partake in organised violence. In fact, not only partake, but actually ring lead the whole thing. It does make me wonder if there are people out there less strong-willed than I, who would read that message and think of it as a reasonable suggestion. I suppose it is possible that the recent Burmese riots began with a monk trying to organise a few beers with his mates.

Worse still, what if I sent it by mistake? I would hate to turn up at the pub and find Fat Jim sat at the bar tooled-up and in full kevlar body armour.

I finally got my message to read as I had planned, and sent it. No-one was free for a pint.

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