[userbinator]

Or are you able to produce your writing/programming at that rate? If you can do that, you're in a remarkable category.

It's the average speed at which people speak: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_per_minute#Speech_and_li...

Thus being able to type at that speed means IM conversations and such can be carried out "at the speed of thought".

[joe_the_user]

I can't think of an instance where my 20-30 wpm typing held me back in a messenger chat - if anything, my typing speed in enough to present the other person with a wall of text, something to be avoided if you want to have a dialogue with someone.

And yeah, someone who speaks in full paragraph or essays is unusual. The average transcription of an extemporaneous speech shows a lot of "uh's", backtracking and so-forth.