996
Zoomers & Boomers are the same
(lemmy.ca)
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27501866
source: @n7gifmdn@lemmy.ca
I've long said that I believe Millennials, as a generational cohort, are the best at typing that ever has been and ever will be. We were the first generation where adults really recognized that we'd be using computers our entire lives and took steps to teach typing. But, so much more importantly than that, we socialized through typing. I had typing classes in school, sure, but I learned to type quickly on AIM and in chat rooms.
Earlier generations only really typed for business or school. Later generations socialize over phones, so they, too, only use a physical keyboard for school and business.
I guess I should amend this theory to include all tech literacy in general.
There wasn't voice Chat in early games and you had to type fast to communicate and not die.
that's how I learned to touch type without "learning" It intentionally. never bothered using home keys but I can type at 100-ish WPM and 95% accuracy
Same... My left hand home keys are wasd because I truly learned to type playing Team Fortress Classic online and needing to communicate without any voice chat. All the classes I took in school for typing didn't get me anywhere, but needing to warn the engineer in the flag room he had 2 incoming because I was down... That got me typing with gusto.
Honestly, these days with voice chat everywhere, I feel like I am kind of out of practice and probably have slowed down since I do more typing at work than at home.
Exactly this
Early Starcraft got me from ~10 wpm to near 100. You had to type those messages fast before your base was invaded and you died. If I had been born either 5 years earlier or later I don't think I'd be nearly as fast a typer as I am today.
I remember trying to type really fast with a controller a while ago when my mic broke.
Typing was taught to boomers and genx first dude. In fact, as a liminal i'd readily say i've had an arseload more typing "teaching" than you have - both keyboard and typewriter- and i'll wager my mother in the age of typewriters had even more.
I took typing class in high school. On a typewriter. Gen X. My mom was a trained stenographer in her younger years.
X here as well. But 78. So i got to take advantage of the digital age without having my teen stupidity immortalised on it. Truly the sweetest of spots.
I am a bit older but similar. My dad was an early adopter of computers even though he had zero idea how to use one.
What’s up Oregon Trail Generation bros!? We really did have a unique environment for growing up.
Childhood with no social media and basically no internet, wandering or biking around the neighborhood, finding porn in the woods… then computers and video games kept becoming more of a thing as we grew, and for many of us starting college meant the jump from connecting to the internet with a modem at kilobit speeds to connecting straight to Ethernet at megabit speeds.
And even though internet communication was fairly popular in our early adulthood, we mostly made it out of college, and maybe even dating if we were lucky, before social media took hold.
And now in middle age we still somehow get to be the “computer people” even though all these bright young minds came after us. But at least those of us with gigabit internet and OLED screens can really appreciate them.
Meeeeeemorieeees
The only generation that had to learn how to record on VHS and burn a DVD. Madness.
I think you're missing my point. I'm not saying nobody ever was taught to type in earlier generations. I'm saying that millennials were the first where there was a widespread recognition that typing was a valuable skill EVERYONE needed to learn, regardless of your future life path. Of course there were people getting trained to type ever since the first keyboards were invented. I mean, there were people as long ago as the 1870s learning to type on the earliest mass-produced typewriters.
I'm talking about a generational cohort as a whole, not individual select cases.
And I'm also talking about the difference between typing being a skill you learn for school/work vs something you use for socialization.
No, i'm not missing your point.
As a Zoomer, I also had typing classes, but I learned how to type because I wanted to be able to quickly send messages in Minecraft when I was like 7 years old 🙃
I write a lot on my keyboard, and have been for a long time. But my left hand is not on SDF but on AWD because that's the default hand position for gaming/shooters. 😬
Doesn't stop me from typing fast or blind though. Otherwise I would have done something about it.
This one I don’t mind. Typing is a highly specific skill that was hugely important for a particular generation of tech. I am basically never limited by typing speed at this point - both programming and writing don’t require really fast typing, and data entry is relegated to history. Now the lack of understanding how computers work, fundamental principles and skills, that’s a serious problem.