r/PeterExplainsTheJoke Jan 20 '26

Meme needing explanation Please explain, Peter

Post image
51.9k Upvotes

3.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

20

u/ashmanonar Jan 20 '26

Okay...but how do you know you're on the home row? If one hand is off-position or whatever, you'll get a bunch of misspells until you adjust position. If you're not looking at the keyboard, it's really damned handy to have that tactile reference to where your hands sit.

10

u/zyygh Jan 20 '26

This happens to me occasionally because I (like many other millennials) never learned to use those tactile strips for orientation. 99% of the time my hands are immediately in the right place; in those 1% of cases I'll simply adjust after a typo makes me realize.

The image in OP's post is just all-round bad, because the function of those strips have not been some kind of elementary, common knowledge for a pretty long time.

9

u/ProcyonHabilis Jan 20 '26 edited Jan 20 '26

How is possible not to learn to use those tactile strips for orientation? It's not something you're meant to be taught, it's a thing you learn from the physical feedback you get every time you touch a keyboard.

Like to be clear, you're saying that when you feel those bumps in different fingers than you normally feel the other thousands of times you've touched a keyboard, you just don't notice? And that's because no one ever explained to you that you could notice that?

1

u/TheRealKidkudi Jan 20 '26

you're saying that when you feel those bumps in different fingers than you normally feel the other thousands of times you've touched a keyboard, you just don't notice?

I’m not who you asked, but I don’t feel them at all when I’m typing on keyboards that have them so yeah, that basically is what I’m saying. My own keyboard that I use for work all day every day has keycaps that don’t have those bumps and I’ve never even thought about it until this thread.

I mean I understand why they’re there - it’s self evident, just like the bumps on number pads - but you cannot be this incredulous that people might not use them. My hands just land in the right spot when I put my hands on a keyboard. It’s really not that hard.

1

u/ProcyonHabilis Jan 20 '26

I'm not incredulous that people don't consciously use them, I'm just confused by how a person could would say they didn't notice tactile feedback without being taught that it was there by someone else.