I've been watching people typing here and there.

[MineralMan]

What I've noticed recently that very few millennials touch type any more. I suppose that's a natural progression from the days when we all learned to type on typewriters and touch typing was the standard way to use a keyboard.

What I've also noticed is that by not learning that keyboarding skill, the productivity of those folks is much lower. They can't type quickly enough to generate content rapidly, and usually aren't watching the words appear on their displays. That leads to more typos that don't get caught as soon as they appear.

I wonder if keyboarding classes might be a great idea for people who will be using keyboards as part of their jobs. Seems to me that being able to keyboard at over 60 wpm would be a very, very useful skill for those who create content.

I'm really old school, and learned to type on a manual typewriter when I was still in junior high school. Today, I type original material at over 100 wpm. My eyes are always on the monitor and any typos that occur are immediately obvious, so I correct them as I go.

It's something to think about.

[exboyfil]

1. Junior high had mandatory keyboarding classes

for my two daughters. They were in process of getting updated when they moved on (this would have been about 8 years ago).

[MineralMan]

4. Good. I hope they maintain those skills.

Whatever you do will involve keyboarding. The more efficiently and accurately you do that, the more productive you can be.

[hibbing]

42. I had to take it in jr. high

I'm so thankful I did too. It has served me well both professionally and personally.

Peace

[Ligyron]

2. I learned on and used a manual typewritter for years.

I still hit the keys WAY, WAY too hard, lol.

[Blanks]

3. So much of what I do is copy and paste...

I'm still a fair typist, and I believe keyboarding should be taught in school, but very often the kind of things that I 'type' are on a web page or in a PDF, or a drawing. It's not only faster to copy and paste, but less likely to produce error.

[MineralMan]

7. Still, we all create original content at times.

Even in emails or other communications, it's far more efficient if you have keyboarding skills.

[Blanks]

32. I completely agree...

I'm just pointing out that there's a lot less actual keyboarding going on, but that's certainly no reason not to teach it. I took typing as a sophomore 40 years ago, and it has served me well.

[jehop61]

5. Most

Typing is done on small devices these days. Impossible to use regular keyboard skills.

[MineralMan]

14. I don't know. I still see a lot of notebook computers and people working

at desks. If you can't create content quickly, you create less content. Communication is still one of the most important skills you can develop. The better you can communicate, the more likely your ideas will be accepted. The more your ideas are accepted, the more you'll be able to advance in your career, whatever it is.

I taught a college English class many years ago that focused on engineering students. At the first session of that class, I explained that communications was crucial to an engineering career. The better able you are to communicate, the more likely you'll move up to become a project manager or director of engineering. It is communication that puts your ideas forward. Some of the students got that and worked on improving their communication skills. Others did not. I tried, though.

I use a tablet PC some of the time, whenever I can't be at my desk. When I do, I use a folding Bluetooth keyboard that has a full-sized set of keys in the standard layout. It was inexpensive, and lets me keyboard on any Bluetooth-equipped device. Why would I not do that? Keyboarding is efficient. Hunt and peck is not. Why not be efficient?

[Blue_true]

76. Engineering has changed a lot. When I look at engineers,

I favor people that can conceptualize complex concepts and imagine them in everyday items - that is how they communicate. Modern data crunching algorithms have largely surplanted the written and spoken word, I have sat in meetings where almost nothing but charts and graphs were shown to sell an idea.

[Blue_true]

75. Also, voice Rec is allowing people to do content without typing in some cases. nt

[MineralMan]

78. Voice recognition has improved a good deal since

the first iterations of it. That's true. Once you get a voice recognition app fully trained and get used to the process, you can be very accurate with it.

I've experimented with it since the early days. However, I find that I can get the words down much faster with the keyboard, and with fewer corrections and formatting needed after dictating. Also, in writing original material, the quality of what I write on the keyboard is better than from speaking, since I can see what came before my next sentence.

I'd use voice rec software, though, if I developed vision problems, for sure. It's an interesting thing to work with.

[starshine00]

6. IBM selectric here

in tenth grade. State of the art at the time

I have heard that keyboarding is getting phased out and I think that is a horrible mistake. I can't believe people really want to hunt and peck like that, I haven't even learned to text because I hate hunt and peck. And since autocorrect practially types for them it is no wonder people don't learn how to spell, they are not really spelling.

editing to add, there ought to be a hunt and peck class then that has millions of misspelled words loaded in autocorrect on the instrument so that they are forced to choose the correct spelling, this may become the only way to teach people how to spell soon.

[Zero System]

10. Same here!

I use a keyboard every day for my job (plus, I do a lot of writing on the laptop from home). I can still do 90+ wpm.

My girls did not/were not required to take any typing/keyboarding in HS, and I never could understand that. I also totally agree with you on the spelling...I work under more than one person of a younger generation, and their spelling, grammar and punctuation is alarming - so much so that I have to put actual, concentrated effort into reading their memos/e-mails. These are people with advanced degrees.

[manicraven]

17. I see many posts, such as on Twitter, completely lacking punctuation. Those are challenging to read!

[Zero System]

22. Extremely challenging...lol!

I seriously have to brace myself when I receive e-mails from certain people...and just hope they're not more than a paragraph!

[OldHippieChick]

74. They were discussing this very thing on the Today show last week and

apparently, many feel as if punctuation on twitter and/or text is rude. I could not believe that. But okay with no period is simply that - okay. However "okay." is like yelling. Weird. I'll never fit in.

[manicraven]

96. Funny, because I think not punctuating is rude. It's like one has to do extra work in order to

figure out the intent of the run on sentences sort of like how this looks and this really makes a soup of words like alphabet soup that you ate as a child and this is also how trump sort of talks when he abruptly remembers something and his thoughts dash off in a new direction and he inserts something barely related to the statement he just used before he mentioned this one and the listener or in this case reader has to to brain gymnastics to try and follow and i dont know but isnt that just sloppy kind of like taking out the trash but leaving the bag open and the can open and not sorting out the plastics and aluminum and other recycling which is what many people do they sort their recycling but then they dont punctuate anything so its just a heap of a mess if you follow like how trump talks or maybe palin remember when palin would ramble on about something and then leap into a different subject and then somewhere else after that well i guess i'm done now

[HassleCat]

8. They should teach typing instead of cursive writing.

I cannot touch type, but I can send and receive Morse code. Talk about an esoteric skill.

[phylny]

68. Learning cursive or handwriting is important for cognitive development:

language skills, memory and critical thinking.

Now, I think back to my mother and aunt using shorthand. I came across her shorthand book recently. She was very good at it.

[Blue_true]

79. You beat me too it. I was going to make a similar argument about cursive writing.

Particularly how it relates to cognitive skills and visualization of space (as in measured space, not Space).

[phylny]

106. It's interesting to hear the Occupational Therapists in our clinic talk about

the importance of crawling for writing and writing for brain development

[irisblue]

73. Morse code was very very useful in Independence Day movie

[Blue_true]

81. Morse code will be useful again once aliens realize we are being led by Trump.

What a perfect time for them to invade. If we are lucky, they will wipe out that blabbering idiot and his henchpeople before the rest of us can organize resistance.

[samnsara]

9. i cant touch type....

...and I am NO millennial! Tried taking it in high school ( in the 60's) by a teacher named Miss Harms who was an ex marine or something and it soured me completely on typing. This was particularly worrisome when I became the very sudden caregiver for my aged parents and my moms keyboard was so worn there were NO letters on it!

Also my home ec class was taught by a horrid woman as well. So I can't type, sew or cook.

[manicraven]

20. I had a couple teachers who fit well within the "ex-marine" category!

Our classrooms were very orderly; however, I know many of us were too terrified to learn much.

[starshine00]

26. our typing teacher was a drill sargent too

she would come by and knock our elbows off the desk if we had them on there, with no warning, "Get those elbows off the table!!"

[demigoddess]

61. you tube videos for learning sewing and cooking

maybe one for typing?

[csziggy]

104. Lots for typing - some are only selling products, though

Just go to YouTube and search for "learn to type."

Here is a beginning one:

There is even one that teaches typing in Urdu!

I learned to type on an antique typewriter. I could NOT type fast on it since the mechanisms that held the letters would interlock and then I'd have to stop and untangle them! It looked a lot like the one in this video:

[question everything]

12. And then there were the old guards who would refuse to even compose an eamil in the office

typing was a secretary job. His secretaries would print his emails and he would respond long hand and his secretary would type...

At least, I knew of only one..

[Auntie Bush]

13. I used to type correctly but got away from typing for soooo many years

I forgot how and made so many mistakes when I resumed. So now I type with one finger and still make many mistakes. I should have practiced and learned such an important skill again. However I don't see how anyone can type on all the changing screen sizes...especially iPhones.

[MineralMan]

16. You can buy folding full-size Bluetooth keyboards.

Last edited Fri Feb 17, 2017, 02:16 PM - Edit history (1)

They're cheap, small, and can fit in a coat pocket, purse or bag.

[Auntie Bush]

44. Thanks Mineral Man

I might just try that.

[still_one]

15. 100 WPM, wow. I was 75 WPM

[MineralMan]

18. Well, I type thousands of words a day, whether I'm working or not.

It's what I do, pretty much.

[still_one]

23. It is still excellent. I play the piano so I suspect that helped with my speed

and as others have said in your thread, there were classes in touch typing, which I don't think they offer anymore in the public school system.

Home Row Keys.....................................

[Act_of_Reparation]

19. Oh, for fuck's sake.

You've been walking around watching people type? And in your anecdotal experience an entire generation is less productive than yours? Because you counted their WPM?

Thanks for your concern, but I think we'll be fine. Thanks.

[MineralMan]

24. Uh, no. But when I'm somewhere I notice what people are doing.

So, I commented on that. Thanks for taking the time to reply.

[Act_of_Reparation]

28. Obviously.

I, too, notice things when am I somewhere. Right now, I am noticing someone confusing anecdotes for evidence.

[zipplewrath]

39. Unconscious bias

Unconscious bias tends to harden with age. I've grown a bit wary of these "observations" about millenials that seem to rely heavily upon "you don't do it the way we did". Truth be known, someone who endeavors to be brief and succinct, even if their motivation maybe out of a lack of skill to be verbose, may actually be more productive than someone who generates pages of prose with little content. Skills can be useful, when they are the appropriate skills. But there is the "when all you have is a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail" problem. "Doing something" doesn't always mean "doing something useful". I'm reminded of the saying, "don't confuse someone who is busy, with someone who is getting something done". Typing because you can, doesn't mean typing because you should.

Someone once apologized that they wrote a long letter because they didn't have time to write a short one. Time often can be better spent working to be brief, than working to be prolific.

[Act_of_Reparation]

98. There aren't many professions where typing quickly AND accurately are critical.

In the vast majority of cases, what you say is more important than how quickly you can say it. I'd rather someone be able to state plainly and clearly what they need at 45 wpm than a garbled mess of dangling participles and disagreeing antecedents at 80 wpm.

[halobeam]

41. I found this interesting

It seems to find a middle ground to both perspectives of this topic.
http://www.aalto.fi/en/current/news/2016-02-09/

[Act_of_Reparation]

97. I don't know that it's a "middle ground".

Unsurprisingly, researchers found "correct" technique has no significant bearing on WPM. Yes, "correct" technique may help people transcribing for a living, but does not learning the technique seriously hinder them? No.

On the sliding scale betwixt "Millennials can't type so they're slow and unproductive" and "Everything's Fine", these findings land a little closer to the latter than the former.

[Control-Z]

45. Wow, that was harsh.

It sounds like you're having a bad day. I hope things get better for you soon.

My son had a bad day yesterday. He got a flat tire and then a road side service driver who didn't know what he was doing. Long story short, it was 5 hours and a damaged wheel to show for it. We spoke on the phone throughout the ordeal and my son was calm the entire time. He even commented on how nice the guy was who damaged his wheel and how hard he had tried.

My son's MO has been to quickly lose patience and take out his frustrations on everyone around him. It made me happy and proud to know that he is becoming a good man.

[Act_of_Reparation]

93. Let me see if I have this straight.

There is a poster here who makes blanket judgements of an entire generation based on statistically meaningless anecdotal experiences, but there is something wrong with me, who -- as a member of said generation -- found that offensive?

Curious.

[leftstreet]

46. ...

[ProudLib72]

21. Took typing in junior high

I can still remember the classroom buzzing with the sound of twenty or so electric typewriters. I wondered how the teacher could make it through each day with that noise.

As far as creating content, though, I think you have a point. I wonder if companies employ one or two people solely for the purpose of typing all the content because they cannot rely on everyone to be able to type. Might be a little burdensome to have to delegate certain tasks, switch back and forth all the time. I'm also willing to bet the smart kids train themselves to type with whatever instructionals they can find online.

[Spider Jerusalem]

25. Millenials know how to type? I thought it was all touch-screen mobile devices for the under-30 crowd

[Ms. Toad]

27. Touch typing is not necessarily more efficient than hunt and peck.

I've known some extremely fast typists who type with two fingers.

So while I agree that an ability to type quickly is important, after my encounters with very fast two-fingered typists, I'm not so sure that method of typing is as significant as I once did.

[halobeam]

35. I think you have a point there!

I have seen my own 20 something children, type accurately and rather fast without "proper" keyboarding skills. I think where I agree with MineralMan is, that touch typing has some additional benefits.

[Ms. Toad]

55. I agree that, theoretically, it should.

I have just seen enough instances where it doesn't provide additional benefits that reality trumps practice.

Especially when the allegation is merely about general productivity - not productivity at skills that require significantly faster than usual typing skills.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

49. Trust me, touch typing can be vastly faster than

hunt and peck. Of course not every touch typist is terribly skilled.

As someone who originally learned on regular typewriters, both manual and electric, what I adore about computer keyboards is the back space function when I make a typo, as I have done many times doing these few sentences.

[Ms. Toad]

53. It can be - BUT - it is not necessarily.

I can out-type any of the secretarial staff in my former office. My bosses used to insist that a secretary attend the phone calls we wanted transcribed but not recorded. I was generaly faster, and as accurate, as anyone on the secretrial staff was. I touch-type - and have for nearly 5 decades. The comparision is just to give you a frame of reference for my skills (since I haven't timed myself in decades to even estimate how quickly I type).

What I am telling you is that I have met two-fingered typists who are as fast and as accurate as I am. So, I agree that theoretically touch-typing should be faster, it is not - in reality - always faster, even when compared to proficient touch-typists.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

63. However, if you are not a touch typist,

you can't transcribe a document without looking back and forth between the document and the screen (or paper if using a typewriter) and while less of that is done every day, it's that ability to type without looking at the keyboard that matters. As I type this, I'm looking only at the screen, never at my hands and keyboard. So every typo I make, I see immediately and can hit the backspace key right away. Much faster than if I hunted and pecked all along, because I'd still make many of the same mistakes.

Of course, just because someone learned touch typing doesn't necessarily mean they got good at it.

I'm one of the few typists I know that can do numbers and special characters without looking back at the keyboard. And no, I don't need to move my hand over to the numbers off to my right to do so.

[Ms. Toad]

103. Perhaps you can't,

but some of two-fingered typists I know can.

I'm one of the few typists I know that can do numbers and special characters without looking back at the keyboard. And no, I don't need to move my hand over to the numbers off to my right to do so.

Most of us who learned touch-typing back in the day - and have ever worked with numbers - have that skill. It may not be common to learn it now, but it was not always uncommon.

I've been touch-typing for nearly 5 decades. I'm well aware of the theoretical advantages (and the personal advantages for me) of using all 10 fingers. But there was a time when alternate keyboards were promoted as theoretically more ergonomically efficient than the QWERTY keyboard. That didn't pan out. So theoretical advantages do not always translate into uniform practical advantages.

The point I keep trying to make is that you are imposing limitations you would experience as to two-fingered typing on proficient two-fingered typists. Just because you would have to look at the keyboard does not mean people proficient at two-fingered typing inherently have to look at the keyboard. I don't know how they can type without looking at the keyboard - but I know they do - I have watched several. I suspect they would be mystified that I can type using all 10 fingers without looking at the keybaord.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

108. I've read a bunch of stuff that says the alternative keyboards

simply don't have the claimed advantage over the QWERTY keyboard. I've only ever used QWERTY and so I can't make any kind of an informed comment on the others.

[Blue_true]

82. There is no difference for some types of work.

For example, engineering and law summaries where content is the feature.

[leftynyc]

29. Same here

I only get confused if I look at the keyboard. "No peeking while pecking" was used in our junior high typing class.

[TheDebbieDee]

30. Sec of Ed Betsy Devos will prolly HATE ur idea!

It's not Jesus-y enough!

But I do agree that keyboarding should be a mandatory skill taught to young people in our public schools, along with a class that shows them how to tell the difference between a fact (the news) and an opinion/commentary (most of what is currently spouted on "news channels" today).

[RKP5637]

31. Only a keyboard for me, can't stand tiny mobile keyboards. When I travel, I have a Google

Chromebook. And a flip phone that works anyplace ... practically.

[Bleacher Creature]

33. I'm someone who REALLY regrets never learning to keyboard.

I'm not a millennial; I just went to a small high school that didn't offer it as a course. It definitely affects my productivity.

If anyone has any suggestions for how a guy in his mid-forties can learn how to type, I'm all ears!!

[MineralMan]

43. There are a number of websites that teach

touch typing. It takes a little discipline and some time to learn, but it can be done anytime, really. A google search for learn touch typing online will find those sites.

[ksoze]

34. Productivity is not down - WPM does not equate to productivity today

unless it is the steno pool in 1958. Millennials also do not dial rotary phones well but can still make phone calls. The keyboard is slowing slipping from the single device for computer input, with voice and gesture hardware getting better.

Most millennials grew up with a keyboard as soon as they could move their arms - they got this.

[dumbcat]

36. My high school had a typing class

In our senior year we had a choice of taking a Drafting class or a typing class. Pretty much all the guys took drafting, and all the girls took typing. This was in the early 60's.

I wish now that I had taken typing.

[MineralMan]

37. I took the drafting class in high school.

Typing I took during the summer between 8th and 9th grades.

Both have been very useful to me. I took more drafting classes when I was an engineering major. I switched majors to English, but one of the things I did in my life was designing and writing woodworking project articles for a couple of magazines. Those drafting classes came in very handy during that period.

[LisaM]

38. You know, now that you mention it....

I have noticed that the newest crop of people at our work write differently. There are definitely more typos, but the other thing that bugs me are the one-sentence paragraphs and the lack of breaks between paragraphs! Which, I think, leads to a lot of disconnected thoughts. Which reminds me of the way Trump.......hey! This explains it. Dollars to doughnuts Trump can't keyboard.

[mopinko]

40. they should replace cursive w keyboards in the 3rd grade.

i homeschooled my kids for most of elementary school, and one thing that really hurt them was that they were better w a keyboard than a pencil.
they started out in a school where the only computers were the ones the teachers used. most of the class had never used a computer. 7-8th graders.

but my kids were the dumb ones.

[Kablooie]

47. I knew a prolific programmer who typed with two fingers.

But I'm glad my mom forced me to take touch typing in 8th grade summer school.
I thought it was a waste at the time.

[fishwax]

48. this is interesting -- i had a converstaion about something similar with my students recently

The students I teach (traditional college age) are generally good with a keyboard. One student, though, did mention that the keyboarding class he'd taken (7th grade) had been dropped from the curriculum sometime between his taking it and graduating high school. (Other students were surprised and dismayed to hear the course had been dropped--many of them had keyboarding classes as well.)

Anyway, my experience with millennials finds them better at typing than most previous generations as a whole, because they've come of age in a world where working on a computer is a general expectation. I came through school after the era of the typing classes (which, in my parents' experiences, were predominantly populated by female students, since typing had been a marketable skill in one of the few fields--secretarial work--readily open to them) but before keyboarding classes started to take off.

[Stellar]

50. My typing skills have always been poor...very, very poor.

I remember trying to practice on my portable Royal typewriter at home. Still no good.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

51. When I was 12 years old I acquired a second hand manual typewriter.

And bought a small book called "Touch Typing Self Taught" and in a couple of weeks worked through the exercises and became a touch typist.

One huge problem for everyone today is that things like those tablets simply don't have a keyboard, and the rare times I'm using one I cannot tolerate the way you have to switch between screens for upper and lower case and to access numbers and other symbols. Give me a real keyboard any time.

What I do like best about computers, such as the one I'm in front of right now, is the backspace key to correct the many typos I make.

[Bonx]

52. 'Eyes on copy' - worthless to me. I'm never copying from paper to pc.

my two finger technique is blazing.

[MineralMan]

58. I don't ever type from existing text, either.

What I was referring to is watching the monitor as I type. Since I never have to look at the keyboard, I see what comes up on the screen. If there's a typo, I correct it immediately. I still proofread later, but there's rarely anything I need to change.

I hate typing stuff that's already on paper worse than almost anything. I use OCR software to import such materials when I must work with existing printed text. I Hate typing things like that. Did I say that already?

[Blue_true]

85. I also freeform word content, as well as tables.

I only look at copy when copying original data. I use algorithms for graphs, tables, visuals, ect.

[Metsie Casey]

54. Not a millennial

I really dislike the labeling. Born in the 70s. What is most important to me is that the minimum wage be raised, animal rights, rich pay the bulk of tax. I have read that the minimum wage is a stepping stone. OK. What about people who do not wish to or have the overall capacity to reach the next stone ? They should not be paid shit wage. The first stone should be a living wage. The rest ? If you desire mcmansions and custom beemers. OK...

[Metsie Casey]

71. Right on

[SixString]

95. Oops.

[Elwood P Dowd]

56. Took typing in high school back in 1962-63 because

I was in between girlfriends, and the class was always about 90% girls. Caught hell from some of my high school football teammates who thought I was crazy taking freaking typing. Later, when I was drafted, the ability to type almost 100 WPM got me an office assignment (admin and later personnel MOS) pounding a typewriter at a base in the USA rather than pounding mud carrying an M-16 in Vietnam.

[MineralMan]

59. Another useful thing at the time, wasn't it?

[Elwood P Dowd]

60. Yep. Who knows, it may have saved my life. (nm)

[MineralMan]

62. It sure might have.

I joined the USAF in 1965, after receiving my Notice to Report. I had set that up in advance. The Air Force, in its wisdom, decided to send me off to Syracuse University to a total immersion Russian language school. I spent one year doing that and then another year and a half using what I learned at a tiny base in Turkey. All in all, it worked out just fine. I just wish I had kept up my Russian language skills. Who knows? They might come in handy down the road.

[Elwood P Dowd]

64. Hey MM, you can get a job with the Trump Davidians decoding all their messages

from their masters in Moscow. Just kidding of course. Don't get mad.

[benld74]

57. I too learned on manual typewriter back in the day

got up to 75 wpm

now 40 years later
and 35 years in IT

and I'm down to 2-3 fingers on each hand.

No way NEAR 75 WPM
but I get done what I need to get done

[Metsie Casey]

84. About the same here

[phylny]

65. My children are millenials. They all had keyboarding classes

in middle school, so they all type very well.

[LAS14]

66. This reminds me of the Ann Landers column on which way to face the toilet paper.

It's amazing how some bits of trivia will catch on. I'm not complaining. I, too, wonder at the loss of learning to touch type. But maybe in the future no one will use a keyboard. Just a touch pad....

[MineralMan]

67. Hmm...in a cut and paste world, who will be creating the stuff that

gets cut and pasted? That's sort of the question, as far as I'm concerned. Personally, I'd rather write original stuff than cut and paste. Maybe I'll be one of those whose writings get cut and pasted by others. Who knows?

[LAS14]

69. I was dismayed when I went to the links...

... of the 4 Dem candidates for a newly vacant house seat in Georgia and one of them led to a Twitter feed. Nothing longer than 140 characters. How can you find out about someone's positions that way??????

I assume they think it will attract young voters???? What have we come to??

[Blue_true]

87. Most young people either free form type or use voice

Recognition to enter word content for cases where that is available. Young people today are more productive than their counterparts from 20 years ago, IMO. The reason young people are more productive is vast information is at their fingertips in seconds and they have an array of tools for managing any type of textual or numeric information. Young people can complete tasks in a few hours that took their parents a day or more to complete.

[MineralMan]

88. I see. I guess I don't have all of that "vast information" at

my fingertips in seconds. Is there some sort of age check to access it?

Who knew?

[angstlessk]

70. I'm an old lady...you should see me text...a word a minute...

and I now have nerve damage in one hand so I am now a hunt and pecker

But with using only 2 fingers to type, it's still easier than texting.

[Blue_true]

72. I am trained as an engineer. The ability to handle

complicated documents and information is more important for me than fast typing. I generally write reasonably well because my grade school education (K-3) emphasized reading, writing, sentence and paragraph formation over math and science. I was drilled over and over on cursive and block letter writing, so my handwriting is elegant when compared to younger people. I got exposed more to math and science from 4th grade onward. Kids today use a lot of electronic devices, some of which have voice recognition, they don't type stuff out as much as I did at their age - but I think many of them are very, very smart, especially with technical subjects.

[Gothmog]

77. I still remember typing classes and manual typewriters

When I am at home, I often type faster than the citrix connection can deal with and have to wait for the system to catch up with me

[rzemanfl]

80. I took typing but never really learned it. I think we should have a few people trained in

shorthand, typing, cutting mimeograph stencils, setting type and folks knowledgeable about points, coils, timing lights, distributors and other old school stuff in case all our electronics shit the bed after a calamity. Drumpf is making that all too real a possibility.

[Fla Dem]

83. I'm not a millenial and can't touch type.

Took a year in school in the 60's and also tried an on-line program. Just never could master it. But still pretty fast and don't use just 2 fingers. I learned enough so I can look away from the k/b for a few letters but them look back again. And yes I make my share of typing mistakes, but always proof read before I print or send.

[Maeve]

86. But only the really old among us still want to reach up with the left hand at the end of a line

But nothing goes 'ding' anymore (well, if you hit the wrong keys and confuse Windows, maybe...)

And now I've totally confused the majority of y'all who haven't a clue what any of that is about....

[MineralMan]

90. I keep an old Royal Quiet Deluxe portable

in my office. It's in perfect operating condition and I have a stock of new ribbons for it, even some black and red ribbons. I wrote all of my college papers on it, and even a book that was never published. It's still good as new.

It's there. Every once in a while, I'll type a letter to someone on it just for fun. Ding!

New line. Sorry.

[Maeve]

102. I knew you would understand!

I think there is a scene in "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" (maybe) where all the secretaries are typing and hit 'ding!' together...now I'm going to have to go look that up...

[marlakay]

89. Lol 7th grade manual typewriter

My mom got one of those really old ones with black keys and i thought it was so cool.

[HAB911]

91. LOL, I took typing in HS

because that's where the girls were...............then when I got drafted, knowing how to type kept me in a bunker buried in the side a hill on the DMZ in Korea, hostile fire pay with air conditioning. Payed off later when I came back to my job testing telephone central offices, well worth the effort!

[Kaleva]

92. I don't speak anywhere near 60 words a minute much less type that fast.

It's not that I speak slowly, it's because if I can't explain my point with just a few short sentences, I say nothing at all. In my English 101 class that i took in college, I did well with homework assignments when I had an evening or a weekend to complete the project but bombed the portions of the course when instructed to write about a subject for 15 minutes or to produce a page or two.

The above took me over 10 minutes to compose.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

94. I think the most problematic issue here is omitting the simple step of reading what we write

before sending it out to the world. Or course, even professional authors need proofreaders--when self-checking it's common to read what we meant to write rather than what we did write--but, most blatant errors are easily caught and corrected if one bothers to check and fix. What with rampant autocorrect and the limitations of most mobile keyboards, I definitely make far more typographical errors on mobile devices. I also tend to post more impulsively, though I try remind myself to check and fix even more consistently.

Aside from typos, we could edit our writing a bit. Instead, we're constantly publishing first drafts. I've taught writing, so I know how much clearer and more impactful a message can be with even a little bit of effort applied.

Might just be that background, as well as a touch of OCD, but it does bother me that there's so much mangled writing out there.

Not to mention the clutter.

I don't say it's necessarily any generation, but a product of ubiquitous social media and perhaps a failure to distinguish between public and private as well as unimportant and unimportant information.

We come to feel our input is vital in all instances. For instance, Amazon's questions about listed products that are posed to the crowd of other customers. There is some usefulness to this, but often the answers posted are wrong. Someone asks for the measurements of an item and 5 people post 5 different "answers."

OK, maybe they tried, but what about the people who post, "I don't know" as an answer? Strikes me as an example of how a little bit of self reflection could improve the situation. It doesn't occur to people that the question isn't "What do you know about this?" but "What are the facts about this?" How could someone think the world needs to know that particular person does not know that answer?

Well, as you can see, the subject definitely interests me! There's a lot of good in the tech we have access to, but newer is not always better. And "the way things are" is not always best. Sadly, when you bring it up, people tend to get insulted rather than thoughtfully analyzing the situation.

[woodsprite]

99. My son is a junior in high school.

Even in middle school, there was no required keyboarding class, even though they had computer class. You could take keyboarding/MS Word as an elective only. They only got one elective period a day, so if you wanted to take music or art, you couldn't take keyboarding/MS Word. We had a class in high school that was just typing, as well as my daughter when she went to middle school. Since he liked games so much, I bought him software called "Type to Learn". It had him go through a lesson, then he got to play a game using the skills he just learned. He only advanced if he got above a certain score. It was the software that they used in my daughter's middle school, which required everyone to take a keyboarding class.

[k8conant]

100. I learned to type (on manual typewriter) in the 8th grade and earned money in college

by typing term papers for others who wrote their papers longhand.

I wrote my own papers on the typewriter. (I must admit that my first draft was usually my final draft.)

After I got my B.A. in history I tried to get a secretarial job at Detroit Edison and was told I was "overqualified". I asked them if they'd have said that if I could type 100 wpm instead of 60 wpm. Uh "no"! Those were the bad old days of discrimination against women.

[DonCoquixote]

101. some people use Dragon

which takes dictation as you talk into microphone. Also,some use the keyboards on their phones, which are NOT Qwerty. The Moral, we should not assume that just because one method is not used means that "the productivity of these folks is much lower." Some of them have jobs where they do not have a lot of time to type epic missives into a computer.

If you want to sell an idea to people, do not say "those folks" and then add the demon "lower productivity." Millennials have it bad enough as they will be the ones dealing with the rising seas and nukes flying; let's not add insult to injury.

[lunatica]

105. I made my take typing when he was in school

He never regretted learning to type.

[LeftInTX]

107. LOL - I touch type, but I think my fastest was 35 wpm

[loribelle]

109. My kids took keyboarding in middle school and

computer skills in 9th grade, both required. They were not taught cursive, which I thought was a major mistake. All 3 of mine (21, 20, and 15 yo) are great typists and have nearly indecipherable handwriting.

[UCmeNdc]

110. I cannot type!

I never took a class. I peck with two fingers. I have a million typos.

But, Donald Trump does not care. Donald Trump does not care about the constitution. I know for a fact there are Russian moles within Donald Trumps administration.

I know that the GOP is protecting Trump from prosecution.

I will continue to type with my two fingers.

Think about it!

[BarackTheVote]

111. I'm a millennial.

I touch type around 82 WPM, and that's slightly down from what it's been in the past.

Back in the AOL days of the late 90s, I would spend several hours a night in chat rooms with some friends of mine, fellow Star Wars fans. We would play a game called "Scrambler"; it was a module where you entered in a word or phrase, and then it would be spat back out as a garbled mess, and the goal was to be the first person to "descramble" the words. I was about the third or fourth fastest typist among us. I'd say the fastest of my friends were capable of typing over 90 WPM when they were really on fire. We were all in our early teens.