A recent Wall Street Journal report delves into Gen Z's surprising lack of keyboard typing skills, featuring interviews with several individuals and revealing some startling statistics.
As a Gen X, I think my typing speed peaked around late high school/early university? I tried to teach myself touch typing and got moderately proficient. Then I got into programming where you need to reach all of those punctuation marks. So my right hand has drifted further to the right over the years, which is better for code but suboptimal for regular text.
One thing that’s really tanked for me though is writing in cursive. I used to be able to take notes in class as fast as the prof could speak. Now I can scarcely sign my own name.
So my right hand has drifted further to the right over the years,
That should literally never be the case. How do you even find your home position like that.
The quick and simple way to learn proper touch tying is simple: Use a typing tutor program. It really is all about writing random stuff without looking at your keyboard, that’s all there is to it, depending on layout what you write may make more or less sense. Do that until you can actually type blindly, if you need a refresher for symbols then do that, it’s worth the time investment, just for the love of everything don’t look at your keyboard and don’t ever rest your index anywhere but where you feel that they’re in the right position. Not some feel-good “feel” but those nubs on the keys (f and j on qwerty). feel them.
As a Gen X, I think my typing speed peaked around late high school/early university? I tried to teach myself touch typing and got moderately proficient. Then I got into programming where you need to reach all of those punctuation marks. So my right hand has drifted further to the right over the years, which is better for code but suboptimal for regular text.
One thing that’s really tanked for me though is writing in cursive. I used to be able to take notes in class as fast as the prof could speak. Now I can scarcely sign my own name.
That should literally never be the case. How do you even find your home position like that.
The quick and simple way to learn proper touch tying is simple: Use a typing tutor program. It really is all about writing random stuff without looking at your keyboard, that’s all there is to it, depending on layout what you write may make more or less sense. Do that until you can actually type blindly, if you need a refresher for symbols then do that, it’s worth the time investment, just for the love of everything don’t look at your keyboard and don’t ever rest your index anywhere but where you feel that they’re in the right position. Not some feel-good “feel” but those nubs on the keys (f and j on qwerty). feel them.
Signed,
Xennial who was in IT for 25 years and never learned to touch type