The Great British Type-Off

Noisy typists – you are my issue. It is the accentuated and inordinately enthusiastic sort that culminates to form the, “press-key-heavy variety”, or what is not-so-commonly known as, “The P.K.H.V.”. The worst type of sound is the pseudo-attempt at silence when still there remains: whispering, coughing, sneezing AND TYPING.

There is an “acceptable” typing volume, which was utterly violated by a lad that sat next to me on the silent floor of the library. He appeared to delete every individual character singularly, out of a 2000 word essay. Simply, it was relentless exploitation of the backspace key…and if this chap hit the keys on his keyboard any harder, he and his motherboard would have morphed into one.

The laptop seemed to be an unwilling outlet for his unresolved anger issues with a typing technique akin to slapping. If humans could understand binary, we would hear the screams of abuse and torment fared by this poor machine. His keyboard appeared heavily eroded, not due to its age, but as a result of its apparent mistreatment.

Sensitivity to the hardship of the computer developed into unequivocal anger and a battle of frustration ensued. The more infuriated I became with the guy, the louder I typed as an expression of my discontent. As the volume of my typing increased, so did his. As the keyboard war escalated – the work no longer was my focus, it was merely a means to type loudly and win this self-inflicted competition. My concentration dissipated. My academic output crumbled. The words from the journal that I was supposedly reading glared at me, absent of meaning. All I could hear was the thud of his heavy hands on the keyboard and the click from his suffering computer.

Misophonia is the “hatred of sound” and it is a neurological disorder in which negative experiences are triggered by specific sounds. The clicking of keys on a keyboard is a common negative initiate. Anxiety generated by a loathing of loud typing can directly induce physical pain.

The infamous “click” has created a new niche in the keyboard market, with non-click keyboards. There are alternative solutions presented, with a range of earplugs. Attractive options include: Earpro Sonic Defenders Max EP5, the Etymotic ER20 Earplugs and Mack’s Pillow Soft Silicone Earplugs. It looks like there are big bucks in silencing the infamous click.

Ticking, clicking and typing are annoying sounds and it is progressively more difficult to escape. The irony has been noted that whilst expressing my aggravation of clicking of keys, I have had to do so using my computer. I am not suggesting that we stop typing, halt technological progression and revert back to sole use of pen and paper. Nonetheless, it highlights that it does bother quite a lot of people – I’m not the only one.

Images courtesy of: stateofsecurity.com & dreamstime.com