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.
Gen X here. I’ve got an average 123 WPM on typeracer, which puts me in the 99,8th percentile.
I started looking at the screen instead of the keyboard early on. There were touch typing classes as an option around 8th grade, I think, but it was literally just having a map of which fingers go where and typing text focusing on using the right fingers. I didn’t take one, but I think I’m using the right fingers for 80% of the keys. I’m moving my hands back and forth a bit to let my dominant fingers do the work.
I started playing MUDs in 1997 at age 13, and building up that muscle memory for every combination of two- or three letter commands probably did more than I’d care to admit. I still miss the responsiveness of a proper DOS prompt, or Linux tty.
Gen X here. I’ve got an average 123 WPM on typeracer, which puts me in the 99,8th percentile.
I started looking at the screen instead of the keyboard early on. There were touch typing classes as an option around 8th grade, I think, but it was literally just having a map of which fingers go where and typing text focusing on using the right fingers. I didn’t take one, but I think I’m using the right fingers for 80% of the keys. I’m moving my hands back and forth a bit to let my dominant fingers do the work.
I started playing MUDs in 1997 at age 13, and building up that muscle memory for every combination of two- or three letter commands probably did more than I’d care to admit. I still miss the responsiveness of a proper DOS prompt, or Linux tty.
Hell yeah, muds taught me to type fast, too :D. Realms of despair and others. Got me into modding, too, working on a custom server.
When you fight and communicate by typing in a game, you tend to get good at it.
Which year is the dividing line for Gen X and Millennials?
I guess I might be a millennial or Xennial, then.
There really is a small cohort between Millennials and Gen X where our experience is rather unique.
1981
There’s also the term Xennials , which is 1977-1983.
I generalize millennials as too young to legally drink in the US (21) but old enough to remember the millennium. It’s not completely accurate though.
Those people literally do not exist. Was that a joke? I just woke up.
The passage of time is a cruel mistress.
i have 70. how.
A youth wasted playing MUDs, I guess. I was pretty fast before that, but I probably doubled my pace in a few years.