Handwriting & Computers

[flojin]

I can type much, much faster than I can write by hand. It's not even close. And I grew up writing, but learned to touch type in high school.

[kajabor]

I can type much, much faster than I can write by hand. It's not even close. And I grew up writing, but learned to touch type in high school.

I learned in my 30s, and I type over 80 words a minute. It's super-easy to learn. The only thing I've done that's faster is voice input, but like boredoom said, editing with voice input is a nightmare, and the longer you talk into it in any given session the less accurate it gets (because your voice gets tired and you enunciate less clearly.)

If anyone doesn't touch type yet, I'd strongly recommend "Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing." That's how I learned. 30 minutes a day for three months got me to 60 wpm, and it's like playing a video game. I use a Dvorak layout, which I hear is a little easier to learn than QWERTY, but I imagine it doesn't take much longer to get good at QWERTY.

[TheBauhausCure]

I learned to type when I was three, when my father bought his first computer. My whole family is amazed at how fast I can type if I'm really trying to impress them. My handwriting, due to disability, is illegible even to me, so often times a professor will ask me to type up an in-class assignment, and, as I mentioned previously, I've had to re-take tests on the computer. I don't type as many in other generations do (I only use my pointer and my thumb on both hands) but I can out-type most people I know.

Without typing, I probably would have never made it into university.