Typing with My Thumbs

It's always interesting what classes taken in school turn out to be the most beneficial later in life. I graduated from college with a BA in French and German, yet the skills I've used most in my professional life came from a semester of Statistics and a semester of Spanish. But more valuable than either of those was the typing class I took when I was in 9th Grade at Mather Junior High School.

During college I earned extra cash typing classmates papers, and also saved the money I would have had to pay to have my papers typed. Those typing skills allowed me to adapt quickly to the growing use of computers in the workplace. I even taught word processing for a time. At my best, I typed about 125 words per minute accurately.

I watch my niece and my nephews working with their laptops, and it's a far cry form the touch typing I learned in high school. My niece took "keyboarding" in high school, but even what she does when she uses her laptop only faintly resembles what I do using mine.

Of course, these young folks aren't the only ones I've observed typing in a non-traditional way. My ex had cerebral palsy which left him with limited use of his right hand. He typed pretty rapidly with only his left hand. And he is a whiz with a calculator.

But back to the world we now live in, the one in which by niece and nephews have grown, and are growing, up in. Technology has changed the tools we use. Our cell phones now do even more than the Apple \\e's and IMB PC's did when they were first introduced. You can't touch type on a cell phone keypad, even if it has a full keyboard. You can't touch type on the iPad or any of the other tablet computers. You can't feel the letters on a touch screen. So we type with our thumbs or one or two fingers. Some can type pretty darn fast that way.

The other day I was searching Amazon.com for a particular book while using my Kindle, which also has a small keyboard. It has small, raised, button keys, and you can't touch type using it either. Because it's a device you can hold in your hands, thumb typing works best. I realized I've become pretty adept at thumb typing. I was about to say that it's not my preferred method of typing, but that's not really true. I use the method that works for the device I happen to be using.

And technology has already gone beyond keyboards and touch screens. Voice recognition software has been workable for over a decade. You speak, and the software types for you. Yesterday I heard a news story about a computer that worked on the user's eye movements.

Technology is a wonderful thing, but sometimes it feels like it's going faster than I can keep up with. In those moments I try to remember my grandparents' generation who went from horse-and-buggy to putting a man on the moon and beyond. And if Granddad were still alive, he'd probably have an iPhone and an iPad and be all over the whole social networking phenomenon.

In the meantime, however, I use what I have. This post was typed on my netbook with touch typing. Later I'll be typing with my thumbs on my Kindle to find that book.