Does Touch Typing Cause RSI? (Repetitive Strain Injury)

By Xah Lee. Date: 2022-12-15.

If you don't play any sports, you are likely to have less injury than a pro. But you won't be as capable, and more prone to injury, given the same load.

In a similar way, this is so for touch typing.

If you do not touch type:

You are less likely to write documentation.
Your function or variable names may suffer from laziness.
You are less likely to be a blogger.
You are more prone to injury, backpain, eye strain, frustration, given same amout of typing for a touch typist.

THE BEST WAY TO AVOID INJURY IS NOT TO GO PRO!

Sure, you can Hunt-and-Peck as a programer and still be considered a fast coder, but it isn't a good ergonomic advice. Given a fixed amount X of typing, and if X is large, the difference between Hunt-and-Peck and touch-type will show, with respect to performance and health.

Maybe you don't write a lot emails or docs or blogs, but other programers do.

If you don't touch-type, that also means you are likely to write less documentation for your code.

Here is two celebrity coder Steve Yegge and Jeff Atwood on this issue:

[Programming's Dirtiest Little Secret 2008-09-10 By Steve Yegge. At http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/09/programmings-dirtiest-little-secret.html , accessed on 2013-10-06 ]
[We Are Typists First, Programmers Second 2008-11-17 By Jeff Atwood. At https://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/11/we-are-typists-first-programmers-second.html , accessed on 2013-10-06 ]

2011-02-23

Some programers claim Hunt-and-Peck is best practice to avoid RSI. I have on record 2 notable programers saying this to me in public forum/blog.

Someone wrote:

My recomendation for avoiding RSI while typing a lot is very simple: don't touch type. Use just three or four fingers and the thumb. I've been doing this for 20+ years now, and can type at around 40+ words per minute, which is generally faster than I can think.

source: comment at ~~http://xahlee.blogspot.com/2010/08/left-wrist-motion-pain-vi-esc-syndrome.html~~

Someone wrote:

Matt Garman writes:

Does anyone have any thoughts on keyboarding injuries, in particular those caused by “chording” (pressing multiple keys simultaneously)?

Easy: don't touch-type.

That will make sure that you move your hands enough to avoid any problem. Emacs and its “few (tho complex) key strokes” approach compensates for the slower typing. And typing speed is not relevant anyway since you'll spend more time thinking about what to write.

source: https://groups.google.com/group/gnu.emacs.help/msg/09085eedffab4e76?hl=en

Someone wrote:

Do you mean to say that touch typing is unhealthy in general…

Just that I've known several people who suffered from RSI and several people who can't touch-type and the two sets are disjoint. A correlation between the two is expected (people who type a lot are more likely to know how to touch-type), but the fact that the two sets are actually disjoint is I think more than a coincidence. If you look at people who don't touch-type (like me), you'll see their hands move a lot, so their arms work more and their hands and fingers work less.

source: https://groups.google.com/group/gnu.emacs.help/msg/b8b7d8a885f947f2

Does Touch Typing Cause RSI? (Repetitive Strain Injury)

Typing Habits, Repetitive Strain Injury

Typing

Habit, Injury

Mouse Pain

emacs, vi, RSI

Xah Keyboard Guide