[qwerty_asdf]

These days, though, there's an odd mix of typists, because everyone is self taught, and most people have begun typing as soon as they learn how to read and write.

Both touch typing and hunt and peck typing are in severe decline. Mobile devices have created all kinds of mutants, and no one gives a shit about "the home row" anymore. I watch those old videos about posture and training oneself to type without looking at the keyboard by typing endless garbage over and over, and I have to laugh, because I've never seen anything less important seem like such obvious brainwashing.

[lordfoom]

>because I've never seen anything less important seem like such obvious brainwashing.

I take it you're not a touch typist? What kind of wpm do you get?

[qwerty_asdf]

WPM is an archaic metric, and as my top speed I target only a reasonable conversational pace in chat windows, comparable to verbal conversation. Anything more is kind of a waste. As long as people don't feel like my pace of typing is lagging during a chat, I don't really need to be much faster than that.

I don't have a problem meeting those demands, and composing my thoughts, and contemplating what I wish to type usually consumes more time than the act of typing itself.

Bandwidth measured in bytes probably makes more sense these days. But again, I haven't bothered to measure how fast I type, other than a gut intuition for how often I get sniped in chat rooms, when people beat me and say something before I can, alongside how impatient people seem to get with me.