

Ask HN: Which Shift key do you primarily use? - brianmtully

I just realized that I never use the right Shift key. Always the left. Do any of you primarily use the right Shift key?
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J_Darnley
Left mostly due to gaming and mouse usage. Right does see some usage though.
For example: when I don't have two hands on the keyboard; for Shift + Enter
and Shift + Delete. It's a shame that Whatpulse can't tell the difference
between left and right otherwise I would post the counts for both.

As an aside, it doesn't even recognise my shift key so I wrote a little
utility to read its key frequencies file and print the data to the console.
That tells me:

> Key 0x10: Shift, count 53170

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japhyr
This was a more interesting question than I thought at first. I looked at my
keyboard, and I see equal wear on both keys. I tried typing the first sentence
using Title Case, and I find that I use the pinky of the opposite hand that's
typing to make capital letters. I've never thought the right shift key is "far
away" at all.

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ksherlock
I was going to say that I prefer the left shift key... but while writing this
comment, I realized I'm using the right shift key.

(I'm right-handed and anchor my right pinky on the shift key. Somewhere, a
typing tutor screams in horror. I use the left control key exclusively.)

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piyush_soni
If you type properly using both your hands, you should use both of them almost
equally. That's what I do. Use the left shift key for keys pressed by your
right hands, and right shift key for keys pressed by your left.

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bdr
Heh. Here's some previous data: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=486317>

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jeremy_k
I always use the left shift. And instinctively use my left ring finger if I
need an uppercase Q, A, or Z. The right shift is just too far away.

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magicmarkker
Left, I don't think i've ever used the right shift key. I'm right handed, if
that means anything. Maybe lefties use the right shift key?

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fourmii
I always use the left shift, and like you I never touch the right. But I'm a
lefty...

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dragos2
Right shift for using uppercase letters and symbols, left shift for selecting
text and for some key combinations.

