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Poll: How fast do you type?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Poll: How fast do you type?

#21

Post by prawn »

pinko wrote: post #7

I type ~100 wpm with essentially two fingers. I do use my thumb for the spacebar and my middle fingers for ~4 specific edge keys, but otherwise it's all index all the time. I have a hairbrained theory that this has helped me avoid carpal tunnel because it forces my hands to move around a lot more, rather than hover in one specific position. I have no data whatsoever to back this up.

I thought I used my thumbs on the space key until one day I noticed groves eroded on my laptop spacebar and paid particular attention to my typing. Turns out that I usually hit space with my right pointer and the fingernail (at that angle) gradually cut marks into the plastic.

Re: Poll: How fast do you type?

#22

Post by shii »

While this is sort-of related, I've been trying to increase my reading speed for awhile now after noticing that since spending most of my time on the computer, I rarely if ever read books anymore.

This is a pretty large shift, considering a few years ago, I did little else but read books constantly, and at relative speed; finishing several books a week.

I picked up on the speed-reading method[1] where I first read about on NP[2]. Basically, you read quicker in chunks and don't use subvocalization[3], which we all do involuntarily.

I've found better success by reading in progressively-sped-up chunks; I comprehend the information better this way and find I spend too much time thinking if I'm subvocalizing or not with the second method.

Of course, the best thing would be to spend less time reading from and using the computer, and more time actually reading IRL.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_reading

[2]: http://www.nuclearphynance.com/Show%20Post.aspx?PostIDKey=13...

[3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocalization

Re: Poll: How fast do you type?

#24

Post by Mikecsi »

statictype wrote: post #4
mindcrime wrote: post #2

I honestly have no idea how fast I type these days. And it varies by domain, what device I'm typing on, etc. But, FWIW, when I was taking "keyboarding" in college back in the early 90's, I was somewhere in the 80-90wpm range.

http://play.typeracer.com/ That's a fun game to play when you're really bored. It also feels nice when, after a couple of rounds, it asks you to fill a captcha because it thinks your speed is so high you must be cheating :) For me my speed varies by what I'm actually doing: typing code, writing emails/comments have different speeds. Actually, now that I think of it, it's difficult to measure the speed of typing code…

Now that was fun, just raced a few people, it is kinda of addicting! Thanks for the nice link. (funny, just typed this really fast...).

Re: Poll: How fast do you type?

#25

Post by bradleyland »

It depends on whether I'm typing a stream of consciousness or transcribing some information. Typing from stream of consciousness, I can top 100 wpm without much trouble. When transcribing some information, I dip to around 70 wpm.
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