Is Typing a Necessary Skill?

cloudwilliam asks: "The Christian Science Monitor has an interesting article on how many schools have stopped teaching touch-typing as a necessary office skill and are now often saying that basic computer skills are more important. I'd agree with the latter, but what about typing? I learned to type on an IBM Selectric II (and still own one, as a matter of fact) in the mid-1980s, and the last time I was tested, touch-typed at around 60 wpm. Is this an obsolete skill? With handwriting and voice recognition technologies, is using a QWERTY keyboard with nine out of ten fingers something worth knowing anymore?"

Comments

Typing IS a necessary computer skill

[shawnmchorse]

Last time I was tested, I was at around 105 wpm with 99% accuracy. That's just a byproduct of using computers day in and day out for years though, and not a result of any typing class. I gradually developed my own touch typing system, I guess.

Re:Typing IS a necessary computer skill

[vontrotsky]

You're lucky. I type at about 30 wpm with low accuracy. And it sucks. Hard.

As a programmer, and halfway decent touch typing class could make my life much much better.

Jeff

Re:Typing IS a necessary computer skill

[Chasuk]

Just what the hell is "prolly" supposed to be anyway?

"Prolly" is UK slang (meaning probably), and long pre-dates IM'ing. In the UK, "brolly" is substituted for "umbrella," and "telly" for television.

Language evolves that way. EQ'ers frequently say "pally" instead of paladin, and "shammy" instead of shaman, so this cutesification of language is quite common.

I've even heard people say that shaman sounds stuck-up, so go figure.

typing is absolutely necessary

[the original m0nk]

absolutely necessary.

how could you post to slashdot without knowing how to type?

incidentally, how many of you out there are traditional touch-typists?

i took a typing class waay back, but can't force myself to touch-type. but i still get around 80wpm using whichever finger happens to be around the key that i need to hit :)

I should have taken it in high school.

[Soko]

*resists teptation to correct typos*

I think taking tpyeing wuold have helpeed me now, since I'm rather poor at it today. No wonder the backspage key on my keyboars is worn out.

Soko

10 years on the net

[geek]

And I still don't type. I use like 3 fingers and hunt and peck the keyboard still. Everyone is shocked at how fast I can do it. I'm no 60wpm guy but I can hunt and peck as fast as I can speak and/or think with very good accuracy. I spend a little to much time looking at the keys but find that even without looking at them I'm accurate maybe 99% of the time. I just never saw the point in learning to type. My dad started me on computers years ago and since he's missing a couple fingers due to a table saw accident I just sorta followed his lead. It hasn't crippled me in any major way, although I am now an english major and hopeful writer so someday I might actually regret it. So maybe I'll learn, maybe I wont. If someone has a good reason for me to learn I'm all ears.

Re:10 years on the net

[Pentagram]

When you're trying to hit a deadline, especially as a writer, it's a big deal to be able to type twice as fast

At 130 wpm you could write a short novel (40k words) in 5 or 6 hours... that's not how it works. I suppose it might be different if you were writing very systematic technical documentation, but generally the bottleneck is almost always thinking time. It doesn't make much difference if you're typing at 30 or 130 wpm.

Which is not to say touch-typing is not useful -- it's much more comfortable and means you don't have to look at the keyboard, as you say.

Touch-typing is probably the most useful skill I taught myself before going to university. (I wasn't allowed to take "keyboard skills" at school previously - that was apparently for kids who couldn't cope with any other classes. I wonder if they think differently now).

Re:YES. End of story.

[maxbang]

Sure, but if people use computers enough then they sometimes develop their own methods of typing. I guess that could be called some kind of advanced hunt and peck, but it's something. Even if it's just two fingers hunting and pecking at a blistering pace, eventually their muscles will catch up to their brains. Who says touch typing is the ultimate data entry experience?

Re:It depends on what you mean...

[clmensch]

I call shenanigans. I don't see how using two fingers on a standard keyboard could ever be faster and more accurate than using ten. Your 80wpm...is there any kind of accuracy metric to provide along with that?

Re:No

[POWRSURG]

I have got to say that is the exact oppposite with me. In high school we had a keyboarding class that I greatly accelled in, and within a few weeks attained a score higher than my teacher had set for us for the end of the semester (giving me an A for the course for the most part). It has only been in recent years as I am IRCing and programming more that my typing skills have gone down. I often make errors that I must go back and correct, where as before I would type them correctly the first time.

Maybe I'm in the minority, but the more I learn about computers the slower and less accurate my typing has been. Oddly enough, I rarely make mistakes with hot/shortcut-keys, except I do tend to hit Ctrl+D (shortcut to add a bookmark) rather than Alt+D (transfer focus to a highighted address bar) in Firefox.

Typing tests for IT jobs

[kstenson]

I was speaking to a colleague who was running interviews for a post in his organization when he told me that part of the interview he made them do a typing test.

His reasoning was anyone that has spent a decent amount of time in front of a computer will be a good typist - it was a good way to see who was just talking the talk without the know how.

Pretty clever I thought :)

I Beg to Differ

[4of12]

I had avoided fluffy classes in high school such as driver's ed, basket weaving and, yes, typing.

Then, as I started university I discovered that typing away on a terminal would really be more efficient if I had some QWERTY skills.

So I specifically enrolled in a typing class just long enough to get up to about 35 wpm before stopping (and technically failing the course).

But I got what I wanted. I needed to learn how to do keyboarding so that computer programming and creating documents on the computer was tolerable. I've hardly ever touched the IBM Selectric since the class.

Fortunately, I've never had quite the frequent need arise to learn how to 10-key, but I've been impressed by the people who do know this skill.

At some point I might try to become proficient with the Handi-Key chorded input; it seems like a great way for one-handed input, especially for small devices, in meetings, riding in cars, etc.

The perfect tool for teaching it...

[ALecs]

Yes - it should be taught....with

The Typing of the Dead!

As stupid as it sounds - this game is SO cool. And it showed my how badly I really can't type.

Other implications

[AllenChristopher]

If you learn to type via trial and error speedhacks, you have a tendency to AOL type, just as the parent said.

That's a problem. It brings accents into the typing realm. British people AOLspeak very differently from Americans. Australians tend to just type relatively well, which is odd, but they do have their own short forms.

The various slangs are based on whatever shorter way there is to spell the way the typist pronounces a word. Unlike the original online abbreviations such as LOL and ROFL, these new ones are not based on the typographic version of the word.

Accents online is something we don't need. The beauty of someone typing properly is that anyone can read that text and understand it, short of something like "lift" vs. "elevator". I couldn't walk into Manchester's poorer districts and converse reliably. I now find the same is true of typing with Manchester residents.

With Brit AOLSpeak, the first phrase you have to learn is "soz wot" which I think means "sorry, I don't follow." The second phrase is "i fink u spk 2 mingin posh u bastard" meaning "I am angry that you don't type the way I do." I'm not making that up, though I profess no great mastery of the form.

Even within the single local group, the AOL speak tends to vary based on what kind of half-assed typing is being used. People who use three fingers on each hand choose different short forms than those who use only the indexes.

Just as we need other web standards, we need a standard way of writing. It's not unprecedented... consider italic and cursive.

Re:Some online typing tests

[Audacious]

I used to type over 110wpm. Keyboards still can not keep up with how fast I can type. (Or is it I'm just not hitting the keys correctly anymore? :-O Oh well!) Arthritis is beginning to have an impact on how fast and how long I can type also. The repetitive strain on my tendons and muscles (after typing more than 30 years) is also making it harder and harder to type very quickly for long periods of time.

Although it will be a great boon to be able to talk to your computer and have it type out whatever it is you are saying - I can still type faster than I can talk.

I have also shown people, in the past just how quickly I can type. I have them say a sentence and I type it in verbatim, just as they said it. Usually, I finish at the same time they finish speaking (like a second or so afterwards to be truthful). However, as I said above, age is beginning to show and I am not now as fast as I used to be.

However, it has always frustrated me that computers, which are supposed to be so much faster than a preson at doing anything - can't accept input faster than it presently can. I have heard that this is done on purpose. Seems a shame that keyboard manufacturers feel that they have the right to slow everyone down. :-/