People now write text messages as fast as they type

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(CNN) - A new study shows that the speed of typing on our mobile devices is close to that of typing on physical keyboards.

Researchers from the Aalto University of Finland; the University of Cambridge, in the United Kingdom, and the Eth University, of Zurich, Switzerland, found that 70% of people type as fast on mobile devices as on QWERTY keyboards.

The study analyzes data related to speed and accuracy during a written test conducted by 37,000 volunteers in 160 countries.

The so-called "typing gap" narrows as people lose their skills when they use full keyboards and improve them when they use mobile devices.

The increase in the use of mobile devices may partly explain the increase in speed, but functions such as the autocorrector also improve its performance.

One person was able to achieve 85 words per minute on a mobile device, while the average performance among the study volunteers was around 36 words per minute.

The use of both thumbs proved to be the best way to reach high writing speeds on mobile devices. 74 percent of users who participated in the investigation reported that they did.

”We were surprised to see the number of users who use both thumbs and got 38 words per minute on average, which is only about 25 percent slower than the typing speeds that were observed in a similar large-scale keyboard study physicists, ”said Anna Feit, one of the co-authors of the study and researcher at Eth University.

“While a person can type faster on a physical keyboard, up to 100 words per minute, the percentage of people who can currently achieve it is decreasing. Most people only get between 35 and 65 words per minute. ”

The autocorrector proved to be a factor to increase the writing speeds on mobile devices, but the prediction of words does not, since the time elapsed in what we think a word exceeds the time it takes to write it.

The researchers found that the generational effect is also relevant, those people between the ages of 10 and 19 write 10 words per minute faster on their mobile devices than people in their 40s.

"We are observing a generation of young people who have always used touchscreen devices and the difference with older generations that have used devices for a longer period of time, but of different types, is amazing," said Annti Oulasvirta, academic at the Aalto University.

The information was collected worldwide, but most of the volunteers were women of just over 20 years of age. On average, volunteers spent about six hours a day using a mobile device and about 50 percent of the participants were of American origin.

The results of this study will be presented on Wednesday as part of the XXI International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services, known by its acronym in English as MOBILEHCI, in Taipei.

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