If someone were to actually see how I'm doing this right now, they'll realise that the question isn't rhetorical. I'm dictating this to be transcribed directly on screen. I like this kind of dictation-transcription because I'm very used to doing this in my daily professional work. I know some purists among journalers who would be aghast because they would even frown on typing a journal in a computer. These are the kind of folks who would insist that a journal should be hand-written in a moleskin kind of notebook. I'm sure there is a niche group within that who would prefer to write only with a fountain pen. I'm no such purist. It's been so long since I wrote anything longer than a sentence on a piece of paper that I'm no longer sure that I can write anything worthwhile manually. I've been so used to word processors of some kind for the past three plus decades that I can't even imagine a life without that ease of writing and editing on the go. Modern word processing apps - on computers and handheld/mobile devices - offer so many conveniences like spell-check, autocorrect, and numerous quick editing functions that it's not possible to imagine a life without them. Even a casual writer who is used to these conveniences would prefer to use them rather than write the old-fashioned way. I learnt to type in my late teens and I'm quite fast and accurate, so I'd definitely prefer to type than to write. I've been using some very reliable professional dictation apps for my work for nearly twenty years. Over the last few years, I've found that the casual dictation offered mostly on mobile devices has improved a lot. Now, the advent of accurate AI-mediated audio-text transcription has converted me almost totally to dictation.
