This is a guest commentary by Chicago music producer and author Chris Gray.
The inclusion of a physical caps lock key on modern computing devices has annoyed me to no end… because it allows for easy etiquette abuse by a great number of users.
I recently wrote Apple CEO Steve Jobs asking him to lead the way in putting this annoyance to bed. Remove the caps lock key. Replace it with another enter key or something else. It’s only use is FOR SHOUTING IN EMAIL AND BLOG COMMENTS.
The caps lock key and it’s misuse and obsolescence has bothered me for quite some time. Why, you may ask? Because there is no justified reason to include a physical caps lock key in computing hardware.
We have long been exposed to various software options that allow us to emphasize something that should be a headline or sub-head in text. Before software allowed us to take advantage of different typeface options or fonts, the capitalization of text headers was a common and justified way to achieve this emphasis.
Now, the caps lock key serves as a easy trigger for new, lazy or barely computer-literate users to type something that is often perceived as yelling based on internet etiquette. This often occurs in chat rooms or in forum comments. I cannot tell you the hundreds of times I’ve seen a group of people scold others for the misuse of caps, often by typing paragraphs with the key on. And they are often repeat offenders, even after being nicely educated about why it’s annoying, rude and harder to read despite the offender’s perception.
If a user refuses to take advantage of software’s ability to distinguish specific text by using features such as symbols, bold, italics, underlining or selecting another typeface or font in the instances you’re not emphasizing a specific passage (instead of your entire diatribe), you’ll potentially being lazy and/or rude.
If I had my way, I’d encourage hardware makers to replace the caps lock key with another return or enter key, at least. That would be a much better use of the physical key space!
In my opinion, the caps lock key should have been one of the first common, physical hardware deletions to happen in modern computing. But here we are. They didn’t even bother to make it a regular-sized key. It’s still big and gaudy, almost encouraging its misuse. Remember, if you feel a legitimate need to capitalize text as I did with the acronyms in this op/ed piece, the shift keys are still quite capable of doing that.
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Chris Gray is a music producer and author who was born and raised in the Mississippi Delta, home of the blues. He relocated to Chicago in 1992 and started Deep4Life, a successful electronic music recording label in 1998. Chris has also written an autobiographical book called “Mechanics Of Me”. He is also an avid cyclist, pedaling more than 5,000 miles on his road bike in the last 3 years. Chris earned his Bachelors of Arts degree in Broadcast News from Mississippi State University.
