Touch typing – what is it and is it worth it?

We often hear this phrase – touch typing. What is it? Is it something worth taking a deeper look at? Or is it just some silly typing thing that doesn’t even work?

In this article, I will tell you all the basic things that you need to know about touch typing. After reading it you will have a good idea about what touch typing is, how’s it different from regular typing, and how you can benefit from it.

I will even give you some resources for learning touch typing if you will want to learn it.

What is touch typing?

This is an intriguing skill that lets you type crazy fast on your keyboard. If you saw anyone who types at a high speed then that person is probably using the touch typing technique.

However, this skill is not that complicated.

The whole secret about touch typing is muscle memory. That is the reason it is possible to type at extremely fast speeds with near-to-perfect accuracy. At speeds like 200 WPM, there’s no time to think about the next letter. Everything happens automatically.

That’s the beauty of touch typing. That skill can make you extremely fast. What’s even better is that it’s not that tiring. It’s not like that – the faster you type the harder it is.

No, it can be just as easy to type with the speed of 100 WPM as it is to type at 40 WPM. Of course to get to that point – that’s a completely different story.

So, now to sum everything up I will give you a short answer – what is touch typing?

Touch typing is a muscle memory-based skill that’s all about typing on the keyboard. This skill makes it possible to type in a very fast typing speed, all based on learning the muscle memory of the right key combinations. Touch typing is an extremely beneficial skill to have, the most well-known benefit being very fast typing speed.

Of course, there are many more benefits to touch typing. I will talk about them later in this article.

Touch typing is not that complicated. You could say that the idea is pretty simple. But it is only the idea of touch typing. To learn this skill you need a little bit more effort. But don’t worry, I will cover this as well.

Actually, I will give you the resources that I promised right away. I wrote an article about basics of touch typing. It’s a great place to start. You can read it here – ARTICLE BASICS OF TOUCH TYPING

What is the difference between regular typing and touch typing?

Now you know the idea of what touch typing is. Next, we should talk about the practical way of touch typing – the actual typing on your keyboard. How does it compare to regular typing?

Both of those ways to type are concentrated on the same purpose. It is to type something you want to type onto your computer using your keyboard. Both touch typing and every other typing are meant for typing on the keyboard.

The difference between them comes from the method that they use. Here’s how touch typing looks like:

Touch typing uses all the ten fingers and creates muscle memory to make typing sort of automatic. It’s like learning to ride a bike – after you learn it you no longer think about the different steps. You just think of the general direction that you want to go.

Touch typing is like riding a bike – you just think about the words and sentences that you want to type (like the way you want to go on the bike).

When it comes to regular typing things get a little more complicated. Most of the time you need to think about the word that you want to type. Then you break it down into the letters. Next, you look down at your keyboard. Then you need to find the letters you want to type. Finally, you type the letters.

And then all over again to type the next word. You can tell that it’s a lot to do. Here’s how regular typing often looks like:

Now I will put everything above into a short summary to make it easier for you:

Regular typing as well as touch typing has one main purpose – type the word you want to type on the keyboard. The difference between them is in the method they use. Touch typing is much more efficient as it uses muscle memory to type the words and skips all the steps required for regular typing.

Because of all that touch typing makes a huge difference in the typing itself. Because of touch typing, you can type for example the speed of 150 WPM (and much more). When regular typing only gets you so far.

Probably the fastest you can get with regular typing is around 50 WPM. And with that speed, it is very tiring.

Is touch typing difficult?

After we established the difference between regular typing and touch typing it’s time to talk about the difficulty of touch typing.

There are two difficulties that I will specify – the difficulty of learning touch typing and the difficulty of typing itself.

When talking about typing itself I can say that touch typing is easy and very comfortable. Once you learn the technique and develop muscle memory then it’s just great. I love touch typing and it’s really easy to type for me.

Now let’s talk about learning touch typing. This skill is not easy to learn. It requires a lot of time and effort. There are many steps that you need to take, and many things to learn before you can enjoy the touch typing yourself.

So answering the question – is touch typing difficult?

Touch typing is a skill that you need to learn. The typing using touch typing technique is very easy and comfortable. What’s hard is that you need to learn the skill to be able to type. Touch typing is challenging to learn because it requires you to learn a few things before you can use this technique.

If you are wondering what those steps are – I gave you the resources up above but I will give the link once again – ARTICLE BASICS OF TOUCH TYPING

These are all the details for you to start learning touch typing. It is not that difficult to learn when you know the right process.

How to learn touch typing?

I will no longer keep you waiting. Now I will tell you what you need to do to learn touch typing.

To be perfectly honest I will just give you the basic information because that’s what this article is all about. But don’t worry – I won’t leave you without anything!

After that general information about learning touch typing, I will give you the resources you need. I wrote a whole in-depth article about the basics of learning touch typing. There’s plenty to cover so the article is just about the basics.

But don’t be fooled – the basics will give you a lot of worth. That’s where everybody needs to start to be able to master the skill. From the simplest things.

Learning touch typing is a complex process. In order to do that you need to memorize the keyboard layout, you need to learn the touch typing technique, you need to develop the muscle memory required to type. All this will get you to the beginning. Then in order to become better, you need to dedicate more time and effort to learning.

It is just not possible to tell you all you need to know in just a small section of an article. The whole process of learning touch typing is such a big topic that I could write several articles only about the basic stuff.

And guess what, I wrote. I made a detailed article that’s for people just starting out with touch typing. I think you will greatly benefit from it. Here’s the article – ARTICLE BASICS TOUCH TYPING

What are the advantages of touch typing?

What are the benefits of touch typing? There would be no point in learning this complex skill if the result is not worth it. In this section, I will tell you about the most important benefits that touch typing gives you.

What are the advantages of touch typing? Is touch typing worth it?

Touch typing has a great impact on the typing itself. This skill gives a lot of benefits for someone who takes the time to learn it. Some of those advantages (from my list) are much faster-typing speed, higher accuracy when typing (fewer mistakes), the ability to type on your keyboard without looking, and better productivity.

These are just the most basic benefits that touch typing brings to the table. There are many more so let’s start right away with the list:

First of all – the typing speed. Touch typing gives the opportunity to improve your typing speed to extremely fast numbers. It is realistic to get to 150 WPM with touch typing. It is possible to cross the 200 WPM line. The speed that you can get is crazy fast.

Second – fewer mistakes. Because of touch typing, you naturally make fewer mistakes (of course if you follow the proper steps and don’t develop a bad muscle memory).

Third – you can correct the mistakes right away. When you type using the touch typing technique you can freely look at the screen. It means that you see the mistakes you make right away and can correct them immediately.

Fourth – improved focus. Muscle memory takes a huge task of your brain. Just like I explained before, there’s a big difference between regular typing and touch typing. That’s why after learning touch typing all of a sudden your focus also improves.

Fifth – better productivity. With a better focus, you are naturally more productive. But not only that, the sheer speed makes you do things much faster.

Sixth – comfort. With touch typing, you can have a much more comfortable position when typing. You no longer need to look up and down changing from screen to keyboard and vice versa all the time.

Seventh – health. You can take a good look at your typing posture. With touch typing, you can sit, or even stand in a much more ergonomic way. That just benefits your health and prevents future problems.

Eighth – less tiredness. Touch typing requires much less thinking to type. You rely on the muscle memory that you’ve built. That’s why you don’t get tired as quickly, you just don’t have that many tasks to do when typing compared to regular typing.

This is not everything and the list is not closed. There are even more benefits to learning touch typing. You will probably have your own reason why touch typing was worth the effort once you learn it.

All that will come after you dedicate the time and effort to learn touch typing.

Can adults learn to touch type?

We all learned to ride a bike when we were kids. Could we learn to ride a bike right now if we never did before?

Touch typing is a skill that’s based on muscle memory just like riding a bike. The issue is – who learned to ride a bike when they were adults? Most of us learned this when we were kids. With this thinking – is it possible to learn touch typing as an adult? It is all about muscle memory, right?

Yes, touch typing is based on muscle memory. And yes, riding a bike is also based on that. But so as many other things.

Plenty of things that we learn as adults are based on muscle memory. It is not a rarity to learn such a skill. For example, driving a car is all about this. Playing football, teeing your shoes, even brushing your teeth. It’s not something that we need to be scared of.

Adults can learn touch typing skills. It is just like any other skill – with the right process and right practice everyone can learn touch typing. There’s no reason why adults wouldn’t be able to learn this skill. Actually, most people learn touch typing when they are adults.

I guess there’s no excuse now. You definitely can learn it in your adult years. The only reason why you wouldn’t be able to do so is a serious health problem. When it comes to your health, ask your doctor if you can type on the keyboard.

Does touch typing increase typing speed?

Is it worth learning touch typing aiming to improve your typing speed? Does this typing technique even affect your speed at all?

Touch typing is all about muscle memory. It takes a while to learn but once you learn it, typing becomes automatic. You can start typing almost like a machine. Well, that’s the impression you might get after seeing someone type using touch typing.

Because of the muscle memory, you can type kind of automatically. You just think of the word and then it occurs on the screen.

I know that seems odd but it really is like that. When I type myself I just “think the sentence” in my head and the typing kind of happens by itself.

That’s the beauty of touch typing. It makes it so much easier. This skill shortens the “path” in your brain so the typing itself is much faster.

Answering the question above – does touch typing increase typing speed?

Touch typing definitely improves typing speed. This skill is based on muscle memory and because of that typing becomes automatic, just like riding a bike. Touch typing makes typing a much easier job for your brain. There are even ways to predict how much you will improve your speed by learning touch typing.

The progress on speed is not linear when learning touch typing. There are moments when you learn faster and there are times when you improve slower.

If you want to know more about that I recommend you my article all about just this subject. I will tell you how much you can expect to improve from the start to 100 WPM. Here is the article for you – ARTICLE TIME TO LEARN TOUCH TYPING

Conclusion

These are the basic information about touch typing. I can tell you from my own experience – it is something amazing. It is so comfortable to type and so much faster than the regular way.

Touch typing is pretty challenging to learn, especially when you don’t have the right tools and the right information. All of what is on my blog is for you to use.

I hope that you found worth in this article and that you found what you’ve been looking for about touch typing. If you have any more questions feel free to ask me in the comments below.