Do Typists' Fingers Really Travel 12.6 Miles a Day?

You've probably heard this one before: a typist's fingers travel 12.6 miles during an average workday. It's been shared on social media, quoted in trivia books, and even tweeted by Intel back in 2014. There's just one problem—it's wildly exaggerated.

The real number? About 1 to 1.5 miles per day for most typists. That's still impressive when you think about it, but it's nowhere near the marathon-level distances that get thrown around.

Where Did 12.6 Miles Come From?

The origins of this myth likely trace back to August Dvorak, inventor of the Dvorak keyboard layout. In his campaign to prove QWERTY was inefficient, Dvorak claimed that fingers traveled between 12 and 20 miles per day on a QWERTY keyboard. His solution? The Dvorak layout, which he said reduced that distance dramatically.

Here's the thing: Dvorak's numbers were theoretical maximums based on extreme typing scenarios, not typical office work. But the statistic was catchy, so it stuck around—morphing into the oddly specific "12.6 miles" figure that gets repeated today.

What Does the Math Actually Say?

Modern researchers have crunched the numbers, and they tell a very different story. To actually travel 12 miles in a day, you'd need to type something like the entire novel A Tale of Two Cities—roughly 135,000 words—in eight hours. That's 281 words per minute, non-stop, with no breaks.

For context, professional typists average 65-75 words per minute. Even court reporters, who are among the fastest in the world, typically hit 180-200 WPM using specialized equipment. The 12-mile claim just doesn't hold up against real-world typing patterns.

So How Far Do Fingers Really Travel?

Studies analyzing actual typing behavior show that fingers travel between 1 and 1.5 miles during a typical workday for average to above-average typists. This accounts for:

• Horizontal movement across the keyboard to reach different keys
• The specific layout of the keyboard (QWERTY vs. Dvorak vs. Colemak)
• Realistic typing speeds and break patterns
• The types of documents people actually write

Keyboard layout does make a difference, though. When typing the 1,000 most common English words, fingers travel about 160 meters on QWERTY, 95 meters on Dvorak, and 80 meters on Colemak. Dvorak wasn't wrong that alternative layouts reduce finger travel—he was just wrong about the baseline distance.

Why Does This Myth Persist?

Big numbers are memorable. "12.6 miles" sounds more impressive than "1.5 miles," so it gets shared more often. It also taps into our sense that office work is exhausting—the idea that your fingers are running a half-marathon at your desk feels true, even if it isn't.

Plus, there's no agreed-upon authority fact-checking these claims. Once a statistic enters the trivia ecosystem, it can circulate for decades without scrutiny. This one made it all the way to a Fortune 500 company's Twitter account.

The truth is still fascinating: your fingers travel over a mile every single workday, dancing across keys thousands of times to turn thoughts into text. That's remarkable enough without the exaggeration.