Autocomplete Was Never an Issue

In social media and sometimes in conversations, I often see one very common cliché,

Goddamn autocomplete!

People say it when they misspell a word and the autocomplete tries to correct it but changes it to something totally different in the attempt modifying the meaning of the sentence. I bet all of you have seen it and even said it at some point.

So, why am I expounding upon this? See, I’ve never understood this problem because I simply turn the autocomplete off. As a multilingual person I switch between layouts often and sometimes I type Bengali using English alphabets. And it’s very common (I do not encourage it but when in hurry it’s faster and easier). Now if I keep autocomplete on, chances are most of my Bengali words will be corrected into something totally different. It’s annoying and time wasting. Do I always know the spelling of each and every word? No. I left the autosuggestion and spell-checker on. Whenever I make a mistake, it underlines the word and I can correct or leave the word as is. Great success! ✌

My point is, WE HAVE A CHOICE. I choose not to be bothered by the “goddamn autocomplete”. I take the responsibility of my typing and what I’m trying to say. If it bothers you so much, just turn the damn thing off, why keep whining about it?

Autocomplete was just an example. I’ve been using social media since a long time. I opened my facebook account in 2008, when very few people in my country knew about it. Then all on a sudden — circa 2011-2012 — it became very crowded, and by 2017 people were doing almost everything on facebook. And one more thing they did, whining about it’s toxicity. Yes, facebook is toxic, it creates a very false and imaginary image about our surroundings. I faced it too. For that, I left the platform for good in 2019. I kept it deactivated for nearly a year and later in 2020 I deleted all the data permanently. Again, I made a choice. I had many amazing people in my friend list. Losing contact with them was tough, nevertheless, my mental peace had the highest priority.

I see this often. People regret about things in their life but refuse to take a step to change the situation. You can complain about your relation, your job, your study…but none of them will solve themselves. Taking an action is necessary. God is not gonna help you unless you help yourself first. You’re the one who can deal with your shit; the sooner you understand this, the faster you will recover. 🧠

Where spring, the lord of seasons reigneth,
There the unstruck music sounds of itself,
There the streams of light flow in all directions,
Few are the men who can cross to that shore!
— Kabir Das, translated by Rabindranath Tagore