siri

We all know that sometimes it’s easier to talk to SIRI than actually going through the whole swish the finger across, swish it again, tap, and get what you want (we are a generhation who took the word lazy to a totally different level).  SIRI uses voice recognition to follow commands given by the owner of the IPhone/Ipad/Ipod and other I-related products.  For more information about what SIRI is, google SIRI wikipedia.

Last week, my five year old niece comes up to me and asks, “Can I talk to your phone?”  I didn’t quite understand her and was like huh?  She said, can I talk to your phone for a bit?  Her mom tells me from across the room that her daughter wants to talk to SIRI so I tell her to go ahead.  I was having a nice cup of tea and didn’t really need my phone so I didn’t think I would miss it.

A few minutes later, I hear my niece screaming, “I SAID SING A SONG!”  over and over again, louder and louder each time.  What she didn’t realize, though, was she wasn’t changing her command and when she does, it is very minimal.  I totally ignored her for the next ten minutes and then started worrying about my battery.  Luckily, she managed to get SIRI to “sing a song” which was basically just playing a random song from my music playlist.  She was beaming!  I took the phone away.

My three year old son wanted to, obviously, copy his “amazing older cousin” so he came and said, “mama can I use your phone?  I want it to sing for me.”  Which is very adorable because it sounded like he wanted someone to sing him a good night song.  I let him have my phone and he, come to think of it, knew how to get SIRI working.  Hmmm, I just realized this now.  Anyway, I told him, “Tell her play a song SIRI” and he did.  He was ecstatic and went to show his cousin who was surprised.

I got to hear how she doesn’t have a SIRI in her Ipad (it’s probably an older model) and how her mom’s SIRI isn’t working.  So today she comes up and asks to talk to SIRI again, please just for five minutes, ok three minutes, pleeeeease.  And I give in.  She picks the phone and before she says anything I say, “if you want her to play music don’t ask her to sing a song, ask her to play music.” and she did.  She didn’t have to scream, she didn’t have to waste her energy, she didn’t have to waste battery life, and she knew what she needed to ask to get her required result.

What we learn from this is

  1. when you want to ask for something, identify exactly what it is that you want and ask for it clearly and precisely.
  2. If you use the exact same words to ask for something, do not expect different outcomes at different times.  This expectation is known as insanity according to Einstein (doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results).
  3. You will not get different results when you shout, you will only get a headache.
  4. Kids will get what they want when adults are having a tea break
  5. Sometimes when copying a cousin, you still need to listen to your mom for directions