Fact · Typing and writing speed
39.0words per minute
In the U.S. subsample of the phone study, participants aged 20 to 29 averaged 39.0 words per minute, slightly above the 38.0 for ages 10 to 19.
Checked against its source on October 16, 2026
In the source's own words
“10-19 39.6 (14.3) p<.001 38.0 (14.8) p<.001 20-29 36.5 (12.6) 39.0 (13.3)”
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, Table 4: Performance by demographic group, U.S. subsample column.
Open the original- What it measures
- Table 4 gives the full sample and the U.S. subsample side by side. The full sample ranks ages 10 to 19 first, and the U.S. subsample reverses the top two groups.
- What it does not show
- The gap between the two groups is about one word per minute, and the standard deviations are over 13, so the order is not a strong finding.