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I'm surprised that people who use the computer every day can't touch type, is this a post-iphone/touch generational thing? Back in my day one lucky classmate wa

by kanobo 6y ago

I'm surprised that people who use the computer every day can't touch type, is this a post-iphone/touch generational thing? Back in my day one lucky classmate was rewarded with a session of Mavis Beacon teaches typing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mavis_Beacon_Teaches_Typing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mavis_Beacon_Teaches_Typing) if we behaved extra well in class.

xvedejas 6y ago
I didn't get much of a typing education despite being slightly pre-iphone. And my father, who learned to code with punch cards, and wrote code for decades, typed with only two fingers... It was only after relearning to type, but with a new keyboard layout (colemak), did I find myself able to touch type.
KMag 6y ago
I remember an old manager, who was probably born in the mid 1960s giving our team's intern (around 2008) a hard time because it was taking her time to get used to QWERTY again because she spent the previous 6 months in France on an AZERTY keyboard. I can't be the only one who noticed that he looked at his hands noticeably more than anyone else on the team while typing, even the intern he was giving a hard time. I think it just takes a lot of motivation to learn to touch-type if you didn't grow up with ubiquitous computers. My manager was so used to looking down at his hands that he didn't even notice he did it. There's a golden window for touch-typing where most people in the U.S. grew up typing on computers constantly (especially IMing in multiple windows concurrently) and before smartphones arrived. It's nearly impossible to keep up with multiple IM windows without lots of typing and spelling errors unless you're at least close to touch-typing. I grew up on a Mac, and it took me way too long to get used to using the delete key on a PC. (I think very few Mac users make much use of Fn-Delete to get PC-like delete functionality.) Typing habits die hard.
- thedanbob 6y ago
  > There's a golden window for touch-typing where most people in the U.S. grew up typing on computers constantly (especially IMing in multiple windows concurrently) and before smartphones arrived. It's nearly impossible to keep up with multiple IM windows without lots of typing and spelling errors unless you're at least close to touch-typing. This is what I was thinking when I read the article. I grew up on IRC, ICQ, and multiplayer games with text-only chat. That last one in particular, you learned to type fast or live with a horrible K/D ratio.
- spanhandler 6y ago
  > There's a golden window for touch-typing where most people in the U.S. grew up typing on computers constantly (especially IMing in multiple windows concurrently) and before smartphones arrived. It's nearly impossible to keep up with multiple IM windows without lots of typing and spelling errors unless you're at least close to touch-typing. Yep. Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing taught me proper form. Fast-scrolling Internet chat rooms and FPS chat functionality taught me speed. In the former you had to be fast to get a word in, and quite fast if you wanted a complete thought. In the latter you were risking "death" every time you typed a message, so had better be fast about it. I went from proper-but-slow to proper-and-fast in no time, once I discovered those motivations.

by kanobo 6y ago

xvedejas 6y ago

I didn't get much of a typing education despite being slightly pre-iphone. And my father, who learned to code with punch cards, and wrote code for decades, typed with only two fingers... It was only after relearning to type, but with a new keyboard layout (colemak), did I find myself able to touch type.

KMag 6y ago

I remember an old manager, who was probably born in the mid 1960s giving our team's intern (around 2008) a hard time because it was taking her time to get used to QWERTY again because she spent the previous 6 months in France on an AZERTY keyboard. I can't be the only one who noticed that he looked at his hands noticeably more than anyone else on the team while typing, even the intern he was giving a hard time. I think it just takes a lot of motivation to learn to touch-type if you didn't grow up with ubiquitous computers. My manager was so used to looking down at his hands that he didn't even notice he did it. There's a golden window for touch-typing where most people in the U.S. grew up typing on computers constantly (especially IMing in multiple windows concurrently) and before smartphones arrived. It's nearly impossible to keep up with multiple IM windows without lots of typing and spelling errors unless you're at least close to touch-typing. I grew up on a Mac, and it took me way too long to get used to using the delete key on a PC. (I think very few Mac users make much use of Fn-Delete to get PC-like delete functionality.) Typing habits die hard.

thedanbob 6y ago
> There's a golden window for touch-typing where most people in the U.S. grew up typing on computers constantly (especially IMing in multiple windows concurrently) and before smartphones arrived. It's nearly impossible to keep up with multiple IM windows without lots of typing and spelling errors unless you're at least close to touch-typing. This is what I was thinking when I read the article. I grew up on IRC, ICQ, and multiplayer games with text-only chat. That last one in particular, you learned to type fast or live with a horrible K/D ratio.
spanhandler 6y ago
> There's a golden window for touch-typing where most people in the U.S. grew up typing on computers constantly (especially IMing in multiple windows concurrently) and before smartphones arrived. It's nearly impossible to keep up with multiple IM windows without lots of typing and spelling errors unless you're at least close to touch-typing. Yep. Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing taught me proper form. Fast-scrolling Internet chat rooms and FPS chat functionality taught me speed. In the former you had to be fast to get a word in, and quite fast if you wanted a complete thought. In the latter you were risking "death" every time you typed a message, so had better be fast about it. I went from proper-but-slow to proper-and-fast in no time, once I discovered those motivations.