Does typing have an impact on our mind or brain function?
Hi there,
What’s so extraordinary about typing —and playing piano for that matter, another keyboard skill — is that it’s a mental activity that activates and engages both sides of your brain. This means that a range of modules in your brain (the memory, motor, sensory and language modules in particular) are all activated and are interacting with one another in order for you to touch type correctly. So each time you mistype a word and you try to come up with the right spelling, you’re activating all these brain modules and actually learning from the mistake you’ve made. The result is that you get to actually learn how to type a word without any misspellings, and at the same time give your memory a much-needed exercise session.
Best Regards,
Aidan Bernales
Community Moderator at Typesy
Hello, @kajoiblaese!
The practicing of any new skill will impact your brain! You know the saying, “it’s like riding a bike,” referring to an inherent ability to do something despite not having done it in a long time? That’s something called muscle memory, a key part of learning to type. When you learn to ride a bike, your brain memorizes how your body moves during the action. Even if you haven’t biked in years, you’ll likely have no problem balancing just fine if you were to hop on one today. Your brain commits repeat physical movements to muscle memory, just as it would store a thought memory.
For touch typing, this means that the muscle memory developed during the learning process will strengthen to the point that you’ll be able to move your fingers across the keys without looking or without even thinking much about what you’re doing at all. It also means that once you’ve mastered touch typing, you’ll likely hold on to the skill for life!
Regards,
Alex (The Reimagined Classroom Teacher)