Your Worn-Out Keyboard Keys Reveal More About You Than You Think

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.makeuseof.com/worn-out-keyboard-keys-reveal-more-than-you-think/

If you've been using the same keyboard for a while, you must have noticed some patterns coming up. That faded E key on your keyboard isn't just wear and tear, it's your fingerprint in plastic.

Deep cleaning your keyboard may be worth the effort, but it doesn't hide the massive amount of information your keyboard can give away. The worn-out keys on your keyboard know more about you than you think, and they can easily reveal that information.

What most people don't realize is that your keyboard doesn't deteriorate randomly. It's a direct reflection of how you use it and, by extension, of your digital life. If you're a writer cranking out articles for hours on end, your vowels are going to take the most beating. The letter E, the most frequently used letter in English, gets hammered so relentlessly that it is often the first casualty.

[...] Researchers have known for decades that typing patterns can reveal identities. Even all the way back in the 1860s, experienced telegraph operators realized they could recognize each other by everyone's unique tapping rhythm. The same concept applies to modern-day keyboards.

[...] Over time, the repeated friction of millions of keystrokes literally wears away the paint, leaving behind shiny, faded letters that give your keyboard that worn-out look. But it gets more interesting when you start looking at which keys wear out for different people.

For example, a programmer's keyboard will look entirely different from the one used by a writer. Their most used keys might be backspace, brackets, colons, and semicolons-the unglamorous tools of code. Meanwhile, the gamer's keyboard will show a disproportionate amount of wear on the WASD keys. These four keys are the most commonly used control keys for most games, and if you look at a keyboard a gamer has used for a while, you'll easily be able to tell the difference.

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