How many of you love to touch type?

[coldcritter64]

I learnt to touchtype in high school, but was pretty hopeless and reverted to two finger typing for many years. Only since getting onto a few web forums, have I gotten back into the habit of using both hands and all fingers for typing. I find it much more effective for typing now I've become refamiliarized.

[Tinker Tantrum]

Wow, all of your stories are great.

[lykwydchykyn]

I think at this point in my life, typing is probably more natural than talking. I can't imagine not touch-typing; doing about anything I do online would be just too much of a pain to deal with.

[churchy d]

touch typing is definitely worth learning. of course, i did hunt and peck all the way up until i taught myself dvorak, at that point i didnt really have an option. id recommend to anyone still doing hunt and peck to paint over their keys or cover the letters with electrical tape.

[QIII]

Decades ago, I learned to type on a manual typewriter with the bell and the carriage return lever. One of those huge old black monstrosities it was.

Just loved it when the typebars would get hopelessly jammed and the teacher would rap me on the knuckles with a ruler for the poor technique that made it happen.

I have my great uncle's circa 1930 portable Corona with the original carrying case. That one is a graceful piece of gold-lettered and black-lacquered art. Not a scratch and the original manual is with it.

[haqking]

My mum learnt in the Army to Touch Type back in the 1950's. Today in her ailing 80's with everything that could go wrong has gone wrong apart from arthritis she can still bang out 50 words per minute which is good going, on the other hand she cant eject a DVD from the TV without a weeks worth of instruction or use the Microwave....LOL

[Aaron Christianson]

I learned to touch type by trolling internet forums in dark rooms as a teenager (true story). I still have to look for some of the non-alphanumeric symbols.

[1clue]

touch typing is definitely worth learning. of course, i did hunt and peck all the way up until i taught myself dvorak, at that point i didnt really have an option. id recommend to anyone still doing hunt and peck to paint over their keys or cover the letters with electrical tape.

Interesting. I use dvorak too, but while I've run across fellow forum members who use it, I've never met anyone firsthand who did, and very few who even knew what it was.

Moreover, any of my coworkers, when I have computer problems, tend to suggest that the Dvorak layout is responsible for it. Including network connectivity, wonky database behavior or anything else under the sun which has nothing at all to do with typing. They just don't get it.

[Aaron Christianson]

Interesting. I use dvorak too, but while I've run across fellow forum members who use it, I've never met anyone firsthand who did, and very few who even knew what it was.

Me too. That's why I've never tried it. Portability > Efficiency

[Mikeb85]

Well, it was pretty much mandatory in high school that we learn to touch-type (we couldn't pass our required Computer Science course without being able to bang out an exercise in 60 words per minute with 98% accuracy).

I couldn't imagine not touch typing, it would be painful. I know it's painful to watch someone peck away at a keyboard.

And for anyone who uses a computer for more than 5 minutes a day, or has to write anything on a computer, etc..., not touch typing is a waste of their day. And nowadays, very little is actually written on paper, with a pen. The only pen and paper writing I've done in the last 5 years is filling out forms.

Touch typing is an essential life skill, not knowing it would be like not knowing basic arithmetic.