How do you type?

[Hash]

So, how do you normally type? The good ol' two-fingered typing or with proper keyboarding skills (touch typing). Did you learn proper keyboarding/touch typing in school?

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

touch typing....very very fast.

[Torie]

Yes, I learned touch typing in 1965. That's why my posts sometimes go on and on - in part.

[dead0man]

Touch (normal).  I learned on a typewriter (look it up kids) as a Freshman in High School a long long time ago.

(though not as long ago as the elderly above me)

[Zanas]

It's before 9 AM so we only have old guys ?

I learned to type on MSN and caramail (look it up grandpas ! ) so I use a self-taught mixed-variant that uses mainly both indexes and middle fingers, and occasionnally thumbs, rings or even little fingers for additional typing (space bar, enter, shift, backspace, etc.)

[angus]

Touch (normal).  I learned on a typewriter (look it up kids) as a Freshman in High School a long long time ago.

(though not as long ago as the elderly above me)

Tenth grade for me.  IBM Selectric3.

Nowadays, they teach "touch" typing using computer keyboards.  They introduce to the kids in the 3rd grade, at least around here.  There's a lost generation out there, too young to have taken typing but too old to have "touch" typing properly introduced in school.  That generation probably makes up the bulk of the posters here so I wouldn't be surprised if there are quite a few hackers.

[Miles]

I've always been meaning to learn how to type properly, but I never invested enough time yet into learning it.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

I've always been meaning to learn how to type properly, but I never invested enough time yet into learning it.

It's not a self-taught thing in my view.....take a class.

[minionofmidas]

so I use a self-taught mixed-variant that uses mainly both indexes and middle fingers, and occasionnally thumbs, rings or even little fingers for additional typing (space bar, enter, shift, backspace, etc.)

Sounds much like me. The first couple words are always four digits, then the longer the sentence goes the more the other fingers get involved.

[Tender Branson]

It's called the Zehnfingersystem here that I use.

[opebo]

I can type properly, taught on a typewriter in a class in high-school in the eighties.  One of the most useful skills I learned there.  I'm not fast, but reasonable, and accurate.

Once in a while, if I've been texting a lot and not typing much for a while, it seems to cause me to make more mistakes when I go back to typing.  I think it is because I text very fast using the automatic function, so sometimes I'm thinking of that keyboard when I'm typing at the computer.

This kind of phone, roughly:

[© tweed]

a bit of a hunt and peck, certainly not proper, certainly an overuse of the index fingers, but use of the others as well.  voted two fingers.

[Benj]

Was a (very fast) two-finger typer before law school, taught myself to touch-type there.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Touch typing, and quite fast at that.

[angus]

a bit of a hunt and peck, certainly not proper, certainly an overuse of the index fingers, but use of the others as well.  voted two fingers.

you do realize that the thread was about typing, and not about wanking, don't you?

[muon2]

I was shown how to use touch typing by my mother, but taught myself a different system on the teletype machine at school used to interface with the computer (pics are at my post on this thread.) The system I use involves the first two fingers of each hand for most keys and my thumbs for the space bar. The little fingers are used for the shift keys on either side. My technique is a bit like playing a piano in that there is no set key for a finger but it is instead based on the proximity of the fingers to the next keystroke needed.

[Lief 🗽]

I don't really use my pinky fingers, but other than that it's normal touch typing I think.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

Two fingered

[free my dawg]

Touch typing.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Touch-typing, fairly fast. Just did a sixty-six word sentence in a minute in an essay I'm working on, and that was with thinking about what I was saying and hitting the good old backspace a couple of times. I'm timing myself as I type this post and it has taken me--as of this word 'now'--about forty-five seconds.

I had it taught to me in my first year of high school, so when I was twelve or had just turned thirteen.

[Lambsbread]

It's called the Zehnfingersystem here that I use.

Ah, Germans.

[Oak Hills]

Touch typing...which I learned in middle school.

[Vosem]

Two-fingered, but much faster than most of my touch typing friends and apparently with significantly greater force -- I've heard numerous people describe my typing technique as "attacking the keyboard", and I've actually been asked to type quieter at libraries. Occasionally, I might hit backspace or enter with the middle finger if the hand is in approximately the right area, but generally I use almost exclusively index fingers. I attempted to take a touch typing class in the 4th grade at our public school (ours was the last class to have learned cursive along with touch typing, incidentally), but the principal allowed me to be exempt from the class, because I never followed the "rules" but still managed to consistently type much faster than anyone in the class (I am basically a self-taught typist, dating back to my days in early elementary school when I was still actually learning English).

[Kitteh]

I was unaware there were people above elementary school age who don't touch type.

[rejectamenta]

I was shown how to use touch typing by my mother, but taught myself a different system on the teletype machine at school used to interface with the computer (pics are at my post on this thread.) The system I use involves the first two fingers of each hand for most keys and my thumbs for the space bar. The little fingers are used for the shift keys on either side. My technique is a bit like playing a piano in that there is no set key for a finger but it is instead based on the proximity of the fingers to the next keystroke needed.

This is exactly how I type. A cut above hunt-and-peck, sightless, but not nearly as refined (or efficient, if you analyzed it I'm sure) as home row touch typing. It seems to me like the most logical progression for self-taught typists who began with the two finger method before committing the key locations to muscle memory. By the time I took my first typing class in sixth grade computer lab, I had years worth of school assignments completed using my ramshackle method under my belt. That made overwriting anything difficult, especially as a stubborn preteen.