Will the next generation ever use a keyboard?

I'm writing this live from the audience of iCitizen, a digital conference that packs a lot of insight into a quick two days. And while most of the conference has been devoted to the "the Real-Time Web," with great discussion of how social media is changing our culture, I wanted to share one question that really struck a chord with me.

Will the next generation know how to type? 

Wired magazine's founding executive editor Kevin Kelly flat-out said in his presentation this morning that "we are raising a generation that doesn't know how to type." That's not an insult; it's simply a statement of fact about how we're changing our interface with digital technology.

If you have young children in your life, you've probably already noticed how dramatically this shift is changing their ability to experiment with technology.At 18 months old, my daughter was already able to navigate photos on my iPhone with ease. At 2, she has learned (on her own) how to use multi-touch to zoom in and out or even pull up applications. I'd predict that within 6 months, there will be little she WON'T be able to do on the iPhone despite not being able to read, much less write.

Of course, there will always be some form of "typing." Our written language is not going away, and writers like myself will always need a way to put these words together. But will the physical keyboard, with its QWERTY format and cryptically abbreviated buttons, still be around?

Just think about all the ways we "type" today:

• Touch-screen keyboards on the iPhone, iPad, etc.
• Cell phone keypads, navigated almost solely by thumbs 
• Video game controllers
• Predictive typing, guessing your input (Google, Garmin, etc.)
• Scroll wheels
• Finger-tracing text (see Swype for examples)

Those are just a few, and I'm sure I've missed dozens of others. As you go about your day over the next week, pay attention to how you input data into devices. How often do you really need a physical keyboard?

While I think many (probably most) of us will miss the tactile sensation of typing on a keyboard, it's hard to deny that touch screens have clear advantages.

Touch screen keyboards:

• Take up less space.
• Can be updated and improved with software upgrades.
• Can be translated into any language, even on the same machine.
• Can be stretched or shrunk to suit your preference or space needs.
• Can adapt predictively (I'm talking about they keyboard itself adapting, not simply predicting your words. The iPhone invisibly adjusts its keyboard to predict which letters you might type next. Type in a Q, and your phone will make it easier to hit U than other nearby letters like Y or H.) 
• Take some getting used to. But the technology is improving with each day. If you haven't tried using one in a while, you might be surprised.

So what do you think? Will the keyboard as a physical entity cease to exist in the coming years? Will today's toddlers grow up without learning to type? If so, will we lose something intangible in the process?

Comments

[Jo Graham]

I think a lot of us who were taught to type on old-fashioned manual typewriters could not manage without a full-size keyboard. I can email on my Blackberry, but I can't type at 100 words a minute, which is what I need to do in my business :-)