The spaniards spend about two and a half hours a day glued to their smartphone, according to the Report Ditendria: Mobile in Spain and the World cup 2018. The young exceed four hours. That is to say, of the seven days of the week, spend most of one with the mobile. Send emails, do Internet searches, chat and interact on social networks… And practice with the keyboard is note. The users each time they write faster on their smartphones. Almost as much as in a computer keyboard, according to a study of more than 37.370 volunteers from 160 countries. Those who use the two fingers to write an average of 36 words per minute —only 25% slower than the writing speed on computer keyboards—.
so far, most studies on writing mobile had been conducted with small samples of users. In this case, researchers of the Aalto University (Finland), the University of Cambridge and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH, by its acronym in German) has analyzed a sample significantly larger. The 37.370 volunteers performed a test of speed and accuracy in line with their smartphones. Account has been taken of the words per minute that they were able to write, the error rate and keystrokes per character. The results have been compared with those from a similar study earlier about writing to computer.
The writing on the mobile has always been slower than on a computer keyboard. Per Ola Kristensson, a co-author of the study from the University of Cambridge, explains that “it is much easier to write faster on a computer, as the mobile phone is a smaller performance limit”: “On a computer, you can use the ten fingers to minimize the offset distance of the fingers and the keys are larger, making it easier to press them with precision. In addition to this the tactile feedback. The user feels the edges of the keys and you can adjust the position of your fingers”.
More than 74% of the participants in the study used both thumbs to press the letters. Get type significantly faster than those using a single finger. These last reach 29 words per minute. Wave points out that “the writing with two thumbs is the fastest way of typing on a keyboard of this type, because the QWERTY layout, by pure accident of design, is bimodal”: “When writing a word, users tend to zigzag between the left and right side of the keyboard. When a thumb is pressing a key, the other thumb can now move on to the next key on the other side of the keyboard”.
there are Also differences between ages. Users between 10 and 19 years of age write about 10 words per minute faster than the generation of their parents. The adolescents participating in the study wrote an average of 40 words per minute, while people between 40 and 50 years only managed 29. Among the volunteers, some exceeded the mean with a vengeance. The faster exceeded the 80 words per minute.
Two users write on their mobile phones. Héctor Martín
Autocorrect and word prediction
There are certain factors that influence the speed of typing in the mobile phone, according to the study. The autocorrect has improved the write speeds in nearly nine words per minute. On the contrary, the prediction of words reduced it at two words per minute. That is to say, it is faster to type a word to search for a word prediction and then select it.
study co-author Sunjun Kim, of the Aalto University, argues that the most significant change between the mobiles with keys and the touch screen smartphones is the inclusion of the full QWERTY layout with systems of predictive text: “Allows users to commit keystrokes less accurate at a higher speed while you achieve less errors”. Argues that new research should analyse how to improve the algorithm autocorrect. Also considered interesting to analyze the influence of other factors such as the size of the screen or type of device, operating system and keyboard.
fast Typing on mobile has advantages. For Wave, the main is “the ability to express themselves better in less time.” On the contrary, “the disadvantage of typing with two thumbs is that it is often a form of writing practice to a mobile phone, since users tend to be bent”. This drawback is in addition a change in the writing style, as noted by Sunjun Kim: “The written text on mobile devices tends to be shorter and contains more errors in the final text”.
what The key to writing faster? The researchers are clear. “Enables the automatic correction. Avoid relying on the word prediction. Type with both thumbs when practical. And practice,” concludes Ola.
europeans make 180 metres from ‘scroll’ to the day
More than 1.5 football fields —about 180 feet—. This is the distance europeans travel of media on their screens when you scroll, according to a research of OnePlus. Users navigate with their fingers up and down the screen of her smartphone an average of 62 minutes per day. But there are some that exceed significantly these figures. The study reveals that some europeans, who spend more than four hours per day with their phones, are about 700 metres from scroll journal. This distance is equivalent to more than twice the height of the Eiffel Tower. In regards to the way of doing it, more than half of respondents prefer to scroll the screen of your smartphone with the index finger, compared to 35% who used the thumb.
