People Now Type On Phones Almost As Fast As On Keyboards

According to the latest study from ETH Zürich, the University of Cambridge, as well as Aalto University, people are able to type on their mobile devices nearly as fast as on their physical keyboards. It shows that we have gained some achievement from constant texting.

Over 37,000 volunteers attended a typing test online assessing different factors that affected typing on smartphones such as errors, speed, etc. And the result was impressive; on average, those typing with both their thumbs can reach a speed of 38 words/minute. And only a quarter of them type slower than they do on keyboards.

Since people are less keen on using computer keyboards, our fingers will be able to type even faster soon. In a press release, the research group shared that typing speed on smartphones is catching up with that on physical keyboards. Moreover, according to the participants of the study, every day, they spend about 6 hours on average on their mobile devices. There is one person who is able to type 85 words each minute on a smartphone.

According to ETH Zürich researcher and co-author of the study Anna Feit, the large amount of experience on phones helps develop typing skills, hence young people tend to have higher speed as they communicate on phones a lot.

Typing performance relies on whether they type with both thumbs or a single finger. The researchers found that you can boost your mobile typing speed by using the auto-correct feature while word suggestions do not help. Another factor that has an impact on typing speed is, unsurprisingly, age. From the test results, the research team found that people who are between 10 and 19 years old typed around 10 words faster than those who are 40 or older, regarding speed per minute.