I agree with your general point, but I wonder if your roommate is actually a good example of this. I’ve found that personally I’m essentially never bottlenecked by my typing speed, and instead I’m usually done typing and waiting for my brain to catch up and figure out what to say next. It could be that that’s not the case for your roommate, but I wouldn’t be confident without more investigation.
That could be the case, but I’m extremely skeptical that anyone might not be bottlenecked on communication speed with a mere 30-40 wpm. For reference, this random source says that e.g. conversations are 120-150 wpm.
And even if one does, in fact, have the subjective experience of not being bottlenecked by a typing speed of 30-40 wpm, I’m pretty confident that this sensation would magically disappear once one became able to reach a higher speed. (For reference, my own typing speed is >110 wpm on typing challenges like Typeracer, and though it’s much lower when writing comments, e.g. because of taking time to think or edit, I still constantly appreciate being able to type quickly.)
All that said, this just means the roomate is bottlenecked by their communication speed, but not that the best solution for this problem is practicing speed typing. For instance, I have the vague impression that nowadays our voice typing technology and dictation software have gotten good enough that that’s a decent alternative which doesn’t require as much practice.
Fair enough. It just felt so jarring to observe (my WPM is ~110 on Typeracer) and it set off a chain of thoughts afterwards, so I thought it would be worth mentioning.
I can get to 120 with the right mental mode and setup, but I just tried it cold and got 67wpm, and I believe I’m much slower when mixing typing and thinking. I think there IS a huge benefit from typing without looking or thinking about it, which mostly requires two hands on the home row as a baseline. But I don’t think that benefit is measured in wpm. It’s about cognitive load and whether it’s a distraction.
I even advocate (and am really unhappy when I don’t have access to) spending real money and energy to learn a great programmable keyboard (I prefer https://ultimatehackingkeyboard.com/) - again, it doesn’t make me faster, but it does make me happier and it gets out of my way so I can think.
I agree with your general point, but I wonder if your roommate is actually a good example of this. I’ve found that personally I’m essentially never bottlenecked by my typing speed, and instead I’m usually done typing and waiting for my brain to catch up and figure out what to say next. It could be that that’s not the case for your roommate, but I wouldn’t be confident without more investigation.
That could be the case, but I’m extremely skeptical that anyone might not be bottlenecked on communication speed with a mere 30-40 wpm. For reference, this random source says that e.g. conversations are 120-150 wpm.
And even if one does, in fact, have the subjective experience of not being bottlenecked by a typing speed of 30-40 wpm, I’m pretty confident that this sensation would magically disappear once one became able to reach a higher speed. (For reference, my own typing speed is >110 wpm on typing challenges like Typeracer, and though it’s much lower when writing comments, e.g. because of taking time to think or edit, I still constantly appreciate being able to type quickly.)
All that said, this just means the roomate is bottlenecked by their communication speed, but not that the best solution for this problem is practicing speed typing. For instance, I have the vague impression that nowadays our voice typing technology and dictation software have gotten good enough that that’s a decent alternative which doesn’t require as much practice.
Fair enough. It just felt so jarring to observe (my WPM is ~110 on Typeracer) and it set off a chain of thoughts afterwards, so I thought it would be worth mentioning.
I can get to 120 with the right mental mode and setup, but I just tried it cold and got 67wpm, and I believe I’m much slower when mixing typing and thinking. I think there IS a huge benefit from typing without looking or thinking about it, which mostly requires two hands on the home row as a baseline. But I don’t think that benefit is measured in wpm. It’s about cognitive load and whether it’s a distraction.
I even advocate (and am really unhappy when I don’t have access to) spending real money and energy to learn a great programmable keyboard (I prefer https://ultimatehackingkeyboard.com/) - again, it doesn’t make me faster, but it does make me happier and it gets out of my way so I can think.