this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2026
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@nostupidquestions @casualconversation @casualuk how many of you can type without looking down at the keyboard ?

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[–] agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 hours ago

I think I hypothetically could, but I've got real thick fingers so I usually make a bunch of sloppy typos.

Redragon briefly made an upscaled keyboard, and I didn't pull the trigger when I had the chance because I like having a num pad, and now they've stopped making it. Haven't found anyone else that makes one, so I guess I'll never really know if I can touch type.

[–] cybervegan@lemmy.world 4 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

Me. I am typing this without looking at the keyboard. Learnt at college on an old school electric typewriter as part of my computer science course in the mid 1980s.

[–] codewizard@hear-me.social 1 points 2 hours ago

@cybervegan I was born around that time.

[–] AlphaOmega@lemmy.world 3 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

Same, but HS. IBM selectronic.

[–] blimthepixie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 22 hours ago

I can do it on my 0hone as qell

[–] communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz 2 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

I type on this as my only keyboard.

[–] brax@sh.itjust.works 2 points 13 hours ago

My keyboard has blank caps... Looking at it would be pointless except maybe to see what layer it's on

[–] TheButtonJustSpins@infosec.pub 17 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

I'm lucky to be a millennial - we had typing classes in school. I can touch type.

[–] Carl@anarchist.nexus 5 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Also a millennial. RuneScape had me breezing through my typing classes. I was typing 80 WPM by second grade.

[–] tinylightshow@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Same! This was before the Grand Exchange, too, so you had to type the same thing over and over just to be seen enough to buy or sell something in the Varrock square. I remember using @ran@ quite frequently lol

[–] Carl@anarchist.nexus 2 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

Yup, spamming “flash1:wave2:Selling 1k lobs 200ea” in Varrock’s bank is still engrained in my muscle memory, over 20 years later.

[–] pleasestopasking@reddthat.com 3 points 17 hours ago

Also a millennial. Are younger people not learning to type in school?

[–] chickenf622@sh.itjust.works 5 points 17 hours ago

My job is a lot of writing code so I have that ability whether I want to have it or not. I have also gotten half decent at swiping phone without looking. Usually one or two words are wrong though

[–] Apepollo11@lemmy.world 6 points 19 hours ago

Another touch typer here. I cut my teeth on online MUDs in the 90s - literally a type-fast-or-your-character-dies situation.

[–] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 4 points 18 hours ago

I can, I have been touch typing in Colemak for almost a decade. I could type without looking at the keyboard on qwerty before, but it wasn't touch typing.

[–] 48954246@lemmy.world 7 points 21 hours ago

Yep, fully touch type here. Still make plenty of mistakes but rarely actually have to look at the keyboard

[–] myrmidex@belgae.social 2 points 16 hours ago

learned it back in the day by trivia games on IRC

[–] _deleted_@aussie.zone 8 points 22 hours ago (4 children)

Been touch typing Dvorak nearly thirty years.

[–] Nemo@slrpnk.net 4 points 22 hours ago

Only twenty for me, but yeah, can only touch-type in Dvorak.

[–] anothermember@feddit.uk 3 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

Another Dvorak user here, wouldn't be surprised if there are quite a few of us on Lemmy.

That means I can type without looking at the keyboard since my keyboard isn't labelled in Dvorak.

[–] BassTurd@lemmy.world 2 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

I've considered learning Dvorak and switching my keyboard over, but the two people I know that did that have recommended not doing it. Mostly it's because nobody else uses it, so switching back and forth can be a pain.

[–] kinship@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

I forced myself to learn colemak because I couldn't learn proper touch typing (relearning bad habits is rough).
Now I mostly type in standard qwerty because my work demands me to use different hardware. The good thing is once I learned to touch type colemak it was easier to learn to touch type in qwerty. So now I have both at 100wpm+.

[–] anothermember@feddit.uk 3 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

I've been using it for 20+ years so it's unlikely I'll ever change now. Can't say switching back and forth is too much of a pain, it's supported by virtually all desktop environments and switching back and forth is usually just a keyboard shortcut once set up (in GNOME, which I use, it's super+space, though you can potentially annoy other people by leaving it in Dvorak).

I'd say some valid reasons not to switch are: common shortcuts are sometimes not so convenient (Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V both require two hands), can be worked around with customised hotkeys; relearning takes time, if you're already fluent in QWERTY it might not be worth the cost and personally I think speed benefits are overrated; also one-thumb typing on touchscreens tends to not be that efficient on Dvorak (I use Thumb-Key on my phone, though my phone is very much secondary for me). That said, I don't regret switching, and if you didn't learn to touch-type properly on QWERTY you may as well start fresh on Dvorak.

[–] BassTurd@lemmy.world 1 points 12 hours ago

I think the switching is mostly when using someone else's computer. Moreso in an office setting when helping each other out. It's not super frequent, but it does happen. My bottleneck also isn't typing speed, so it's not really worth it to spend the effort to switch.

[–] codewizard@hear-me.social 2 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

@anothermember @_deleted_ looked up dvorak keyboard. It's easier to learn and use than the qwerty keyboard we're used to.

[–] anothermember@feddit.uk 5 points 21 hours ago

I wouldn't necessarily say easier, but more ergonomic.

[–] schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works 1 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

I tried Colemak, but it was too confusing switching back and forth for work. I could probably manage it now, but QWERTY really is fine for my purposes. What I would like to learn--but only if I could use it everywhere--is VIM.

For my phone, I use Thumbkey--9 letter buttons that each have 1 value if you push on it and 8 others if you want to slide, so that's 81 keys quickly available with minimal futzing about finger placement and no depending on a computer to guess what you mean.

[–] chickenf622@sh.itjust.works 1 points 17 hours ago

If an editor has plugins then there is more than likely a vim extension for it. I know VS Code has one, and it has worked consistently for me. I think someone also made a Firefox extension for vim like navigation if you want to really go hard.

[–] codewizard@hear-me.social 1 points 22 hours ago (1 children)
[–] _deleted_@aussie.zone 1 points 22 hours ago
[–] Berttheduck@lemmy.ml 6 points 21 hours ago

I can touch type pretty well. Dyslexia not withstanding. I learned during the MSN messenger years.

I can also blind swipe text on my phone with not totally atrocious accuracy. Still need to proof read them before sending though.

[–] noxypaws@pawb.social 2 points 16 hours ago

I touch type, have had and regularly used two different keyboards with blank keycaps without issue

[–] bizzle@lemmy.world 2 points 17 hours ago

I learned how to type recently because my wife can do it really fast. So I practiced late nights for months just so I could beat her.

[–] sbeak@sopuli.xyz 5 points 21 hours ago

No problem! We were taught this in primary school

[–] Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 5 points 22 hours ago

Not me. I know where the buttons are, I just have really bad aim.

[–] Reygle@lemmy.world 3 points 21 hours ago

I can touch type with relative accuracy and speed, until I sit down in front of one of these ultra-cheap keyboards where the key spacing and travel is all wrong, then I can adjust to it over the course of 30 minutes or so.

[–] wjrii@lemmy.world 3 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

Despite making them my main hobby the last couple of years, not me, at least not with any level of speed or confidence. I don't hunt and peck, but it's definitely a weird dance of muscle memory and hand-eye coordination, and I top out at about 60-70 wpm when composing from my mind. It's quite a bit less if I'm transcribing something, but that's not the use case it once was.

[–] zlatiah@lemmy.world 2 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

Learned Colemak-DH a year ago, yes. In fact my keyboard is not correctly labeled at all, so I have to

Used to be able to do it on QWERTY too, but I might need a week to get back into it. I can semi-do it on my phone (QWERTY) but not very good at it

[–] sem@piefed.blahaj.zone 1 points 21 hours ago

I can do letters, . and , ; :' " ! ?

I can't do the numbers or number bar symbols at all

I can't do ~ or `