Fact · Typing and writing speed
37.8words per minute
Native speakers of English were the fastest group by English experience, with a mean of 37.8 words per minute on phones.
Checked against its source on October 16, 2026
In the source's own words
“Native users of English were the fastest typists (M = 37.8, SD = 13.6)”
How do People Type on Mobile Devices? Observations from a Study with 37,000 Volunteers, Kseniia Palin et al., Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI 2019), 2019, Results: Language use.
Open the original- What it measures
- The paper groups participants by how often they type in English, from native to never.
- What it does not show
- Language experience is self-reported, so the figure shows an association with typing speed, not a cause.