I would have to see some data before I believe this is a common phenomenon. I’ve never met someone who accidentally happened upon touch typing.
And most people who learn to play the piano are also drilled for several years in which fingers to use in what combinations.
I also have a three draft process. First draft, ideas, etc, I do by hand, with a fountain pen, just any old where. Coffee shops, beaches, etc. Second draft on a good old manual typewriter. Third draft, on computer, for easy editing, fixing typos, etc.
I learned to type on the Smith-Corona manual, later had an electric, but was an early adopter of computers, which became available just in time for writing my dissertation. It was a Kay-pro four, used a CPM operating system (on floppies!), and the word processing program was WordStar. There was no WYSIWYG yet, you had to embed commands in the text, had no idea what it would look like until you printed it. What a PITA it was. But a tad easier for the footnotes in the dratted dissertation. I had to buy a special daisy wheel for the printer for the foreign language words.
But now, I have 4 manual typewriters. One that dates from the 1920’s, that I bought at a flea market in Zürich in the 1980’s, two that I found in “antique” (junk) stores, and one that I bought online from Germany, for the umlaut letters. I love the sound of the keys hitting platen, the carriage return, and the bell. They are the soundtrack of creativity.
Oh, but whoever thinks their old manual typewriter might be worth something, think again. Some junk shops I went to in search of typewriters had thrown out ones people had given them, because they couldn’t sell them. Then again, that was a junk shop in a small, rural, economically depressed part of the country. Typewriters in big cities with people interested in retro tech might do way better.
I think kids create their own kind of touch typing from using computers at such an early age. It’s probably not classical touch typing, but they can type by feel without looking at the keyboard.
Again, I would have to see proof of this.
I’m not sure it’s accidental; it’s just habit. I never took typing, and here I am typing without looking at the keyboard. Now, it’s frustrating changing keyboards, because the keys aren’t always where my muscle memory says they should be. My wife’s MacBook, for example, is frustrating and takes some time to get used to.
Sure, just like how many people were able to “touch text” back in the flip phone days, and there certainly wasn’t any formal training for that. (When you had to type 2 to get an A or 22 to get a B or 222 to get a C and 3 to get a D, etc. I had several friends who were able to reply to texts on their phones while driving without ever looking at the phone. I was able to do it to some extent, but had to double check once in awhile. Kids, don’t text and drive.)
And the thing is, it may not be classical touch typing in the same-finger-per-key method, but when you type 100wpm, who cares? If you’re not looking at the keyboard and typing as you think, that’s touch typing by definition–it doesn’t have to follow a prescribed method. I don’t always use the classical finger combinations, and, like I said, I change fingers depending on context–from watching my computer-raised friends, this is not atypical. For example, typing boards.straightdope.com, the first “o” I hit with my right ring finger (since I usually type "b"s with my right index finger instead of my left index finger as proscribed), but the second “o” gets the middle finger. Similarly, it seems that the “tr” combination should both be typed with the left hand index finger, but I do “tr” as an “ring-index” finger combination, and “str” is a very nice feeling ring-index-middle roll of my hand instead of the stuttery ring-index-index classical touch typing would encourage.
Just to add another data point to the conversation. I’m a self-taught millennial when it comes to typing. I played a text based game in junior high where typing speed was critical to staying alive so I tough myself to type quickly. Once I got to high school I took keyboarding and started off at ~70 wpm which was the goal of the class.
Unfortunately, once they cover my hands I can’t type for crap but for typing papers and anything original I don’t really need to look away from the key board. After several more years I can look away for whole sentences and generally only make a mistake about 20% of the time. I’ll never qualify as a typist for the steno pool but I can type a report for a client at 100 wpm and then use spell check to correct my mistakes after I’m done. It drives my wife insane to watch me type since I rarely use the proper fingers to hit the proper key and she can’t handle ever seeing mistakes. If I was using a manual typewrite that might mater but my keyboarding mistakes are no greater than my spelling mistakes which are atrocious so it doesn’t take me any longer to correct a document.
nm
When I was learning to type, I found myself “fingering” the letters of words as I heard them, using the touch typing positions we were taught in class. My goal was to see if could silently type out words as fast as they were being spoken. If the speech is slow enough, I can keep up.
Surprised no one has mentioned California Typewriter, a fond look at typewriter history.
If a good chunk of the problem is the distractions of the Web (I can relate!), why not get a cheap desktop computer, put it where you’d put your typewriter, and just not connect it to the Internet?
Speaking just for myself, I became a good writer only with the availability of modern word processing. If I was sent back to 1969, I might be able to get by with an electric typewriter and correcting ribbon, but even that would be a struggle. No way I could hammer the keys on a manual fast enough to keep up with my thoughts, and trying to do so was incredibly frustrating.