Multiplying the Skill Base.

I remember a time not so very long ago when the ability to type proficiently was a skill possessed by a relatively small number of professionals. People went to college to learn it, while the rest of us were generally categorised as one-finger typists. Now we have the internet, and especially the social networking facilities, and everybody but the most diehard reactionary has become a typist.

What interests me most, though, comes from watching young people doing what most young people seem to be doing most of the time these days – typing on a smart phone while being oblivious to the world passing them by and even their own forward progress in some situations. They do it by resting the phone across the fingers of both hands while pressing the keys with their thumbs, and they do so with remarkable speed for an action which is not ergonomically sound.

So now we’ve stopped being a nation of one-finger typists and become a nation of two-thumb typists. I suppose an increase of 100% has to be considered progress of sorts.