Do these things correlate that much tho? Not to toot my own horn, but I am fairly tech-proficient and have terrible typing skills. My technique is somewhere in between hunt-and-peck and touch-typing, despite regular typing lessons in elementary school. I imagine a lot of other people are like this, and vice-versa as well.

Are computer labs still a thing in schools?

How would you learn keyboard typing, if one always types on the phone?! (I am not even Z and have to look on the keyboard)

Gen X here. I've got an average 123 WPM on typeracer, which puts me in the 99,8th percentile.

I started looking at the screen instead of the keyboard early on. There were touch typing classes as an option around 8th grade, I think, but it was literally just having a map of which fingers go where and typing text focusing on using the right fingers. I didn't take one, but I think I'm using the right fingers for 80% of the keys. I'm moving my hands back and forth a bit to let my dominant fingers do the work.

I started playing MUDs in 1997 at age 13, and building up that muscle memory for every combination of two- or three letter commands probably did more than I'd care to admit. I still miss the responsiveness of a proper DOS prompt, or Linux tty.

that's because they're not using computers or doing work

I was a terrible typer as a kid, two finger hunt and pecker. Got a job that necessitated fast typing while listening or reading. I learned how to touch type, or fake it enough, really quick. Humans are adaptable, that’s why we are everywhere, they just need the motivation to learn the skill.

I feel like this calls for the importance of not just inundation but actual education for kids.

We basically let a whole generation have the relationship with the most common and arguably valuable be defined by advertising companies.

We’re not even teaching them cursive anymore and they still can’t type? What are they doing in schools?

The article is kind of all over the place mixing high-school graduates and fourth-graders? I can see how you're sluggish at typing in fourth grade... The numbers for a 17 year old would be interesting... But yeah, 13 words per minute isn't impressive. And most young people I know use phones and tablets, not computers. So naturally a good amount of them isn't good around these things.

I had to teach some zoomers how to send an email, especially about using bcc, pretty funny I have to say