Just My Type
If you are sitting at a computer, look down at your keyboard. If you’re reading this on your phone, you can find some way of bringing up a keyboard (either by trying to send a text message, entering a URL, etc.) and see the exact same thing. You will see all the letters of the alphabet, but in what appears to be no logical order. We take this for granted today, but this layout (affectionately known as QWERTY for the start of the top row of letters) was carefully thought out and served a very practical purpose. Original typewriters had only two rows of letters and they were in alphabetical order. Because there are physical arms and levers that make a typewriter work, it is possible to type so fast that these arms would interlock or jam up. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, the fastest way to type a paper was to slow down the typing process.
WARNING: The next couple of paragraphs contain nerdy information. I find it very interesting, but if it’s not your thing feel free to scroll down a couple of paragraphs.
You might have heard that story before. And in a way, it still makes sense to use a QWERTY layout. After all, there was a long period where typewriters were still used after computers and their keyboards were created, and we all hate change so… But I learned something new today. Take another look at your keyboard. Have you ever thought about why all of the keys are offset the way they are? For instance, the letter “T” is exactly halfway between the numbers “5” and “6” right above it, but it’s not halfway between “G” and “F” right below it. Likewise, “G” is exactly halfway between “V” and “B” but not “T” and “Y”. This goes back to the same typewriter issues from the 1800’s. There are physical arms and levers that connect to the keys of a typewriter to transfer all that input from the keys to the paper. All 40+ keys and levers have a very tiny amount of space, and instead of having multiple vertical layers of levers, they offset the keys in this way so that all of the levers could be side by side. It’s really a brilliant move.
But I can’t think of many better examples of how a “That’s how we’ve always done it” mentality has created so many unintended consequences that we just accept because we hate change. First of all, we have to acknowledge that the keyboard layout we use was designed to be inefficient. Secondly, we have to also acknowledge that the primary reasons for creating an inefficient keyboard are completely gone. We no longer have levers or physical moving bits. We have ones and zeros and can arrange them however we want. The offset doesn’t help, its just a relic from the past. As a side effect, because our hands and fingers have to “travel” more we experience more fatigue as well as increasing the likelihood of developing arthritis and carpal tunnel.
The kicker is we have people who have come up with much more efficient keyboard layouts, such as the Dvorak and the Colemak. In fact, they can be up to 60% faster than our standard QWERTY. That means that typists who use them can easily type over 200 words per minute while most of us struggle to type 100 words per minute. There are ergonomic keyboards that aid in typing and relieve the stress factors which leads to better health.
So why don’t we change? I hate to say it but it really is just because that’s the way we’ve always done it. If we changed keyboards, there would be a substantial learning curve. Sure, it would eventually lead to faster typing and other benefits, but it would take a few weeks or months for it to feel natural. Then there are all of the keyboard shortcuts, the other developers or programs that would still use QWERTY, and it would just be inconvenient. So we settle for an outdated, inefficient, no longer necessary method of inputing data into devices we spend hours on each day.
Why did I just spend so much time talking about a keyboard and bringing up issues that most of us don’t care about and pointing out problems we never knew we had? Well, there are at least two reasons. The first is that often in churches we get stuck on the ways we’ve done things before. There have been some amazing things that the church has done in the past, but they were for a particular time and context that might not be applicable anymore. It might even still work, but is it the best thing? And secondly, because I had to spend over 600 words trying to explain why most of us know we do something poorly but we’re ok with it. To an outsider, that should seem ludicrous. It might make perfect sense to us, and we see all the obstacles and problems with making a change. But to an outsider, they see all the obstacles and problems with staying the same.
Beyond just the tech world, or even the church world and necessary changes, I have to think this same happens when we try to justify our actions to God. We know we are doing (whether by action or inaction) things that go against God’s will. But to do otherwise would require a change in our behavior, sometimes big changes that would make getting used to an entirely different keyboard layout seem insignificant. We see the things that we’d ‘lose’ by following him, God sees the things we are losing by not following him.