Is typing on the smartphone faster than the actual keyboard?

Although the study was based on English, it is said that in recent years, more and more people type with smartphones at the same speed as the existing physical keyboard. Research teams at the University of Alto, Cambridge and Zurich have studied the typing speed of smartphones and physical keyboards. It is reported that more than 37,000 volunteers from 160 countries were recruited and an average of 36 wpm per minute was recorded as a result of surveying English typing speed using mobile devices. In addition, 70% of the participants said that typing on the smartphone side was faster than the actual keyboard.

Another study conducted in 2018 found that the average speed of physical keyboard input was 52 wpm per minute. However, one participant said that he was able to input 85 wpm with a smartphone. Of course, it can be seen that the speed of typing on the hardware keyboard is falling rather than the speed of the smartphone type has increased significantly.

An official of the research team pointed out that although the actual keyboard is much faster and can type at about 100 wpm, the percentage of people who actually use the keyboard is decreasing. Most of them recorded 35 to 36 wpm, but if the actual keyboard speed decreased, but the touch screen speed increased, the difference would have decreased.

One of the interesting results is that typing with both hands is faster than typing with one hand or one finger, and averages 38 wpm. Two-handed input accounts for 74% of the survey subjects. Of course, the younger generation is faster, so those between the ages of 10 and 19 entered 10 wpm more words per minute than in their 40s. In addition, the autocorrect function greatly speeds up typing, while the word prediction function slows down.

The somewhat surprising result is that teenagers are not the heaviest users of smartphones, but the age group that uses smartphones the most was the 20-39 year old group. Those who participated in the study used their smartphones for an average of 6 hours a day.

In the paper, researchers also acknowledge the limitations of the study. Participants are mainly young people among those who are interested in typing. However, this research data seems to give a glimpse into the future of typing. The younger generation is familiar with touchscreen devices, so there is a big difference from the previous generation. It is different from typing on a real keyboard because it is a kind of athletic ability that you learn by yourself without formal training. If you are curious about how fast you can type, you can try to determine it in about 10 minutes here .