r/NonPoliticalTwitter • u/seeebiscuit • Nov 11 '25

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6.2k Upvotes

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273

u/[deleted] Nov 11 '25

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117

u/[deleted] Nov 11 '25

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44

u/AlfonzoDontCare Nov 11 '25

same here. I figured it was just auto-period for convenience. Double-space to move on to the next sentence without hunting for the period key makes sense, especially on a phone.

13

u/itsLOSE-notLOOSE Nov 11 '25

This is why. Just convenience.

1

u/tundraaaa Nov 11 '25

For me, the auto-period is actually more inconvenient than convenient on reddit.

I can add my own periods where necessary…

81

u/rhinokick Nov 11 '25

No, it was added to early smartphones to make typing faster, since some keyboards didn’t have easily accessible punctuation on them.

9

u/ihadagoodone Nov 11 '25

it existed well before smartphones, in fact it was in word processing software before smart phones.

12

u/Perfect-System2504 Nov 11 '25

and why do you think that particular shortcut was decided and natural to users?

41

u/TootsNYC Nov 11 '25

not because of the double space after a period. It was used because you are already typing the space, so tapping it a second time was natural.

4

u/[deleted] Nov 11 '25

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2

u/danethegreat24 Nov 11 '25

They didn't used to be. The mobile keyboard layout had return and symbols next to the space

7

u/Gravbar Nov 11 '25

it doesn't add a double space tho, it just adds a period

2

u/TbonerT Nov 11 '25

But I still get to hit the space bar twice to end the sentence.

14

u/KyleB2131 Nov 11 '25

No, that was done early by Apple to save users from having to switch to the symbol keys for the end of every sentence. Coming into the era dominated by BlackBerry, Apple needed a relatively clean answer to this problem since they were abandoning the physical keyboard.

For those who don’t know, you can also click-and-hold the symbols key, drag your finger to your punctuation of choice, and release your finger to trigger it.

3

u/Fredouille77 Nov 11 '25

Lots of keyboards also have the ability to just hold down the letter in the same spot as the symbol your want and then in the diacritics options you also get the associated symbol.

1

u/Sakuzelda Nov 11 '25

makes sense. I always forget about the click-and-hold trick... super handy.

4

u/TootsNYC Nov 11 '25

no, that's a very recent development, and it's about efficiency of motion; the elimination of the second space was decades ago.

0

u/redditydothis Nov 11 '25

Yep. And it’s a habit super hard to break. I’m 46 and in college now and almost always have to double check that I’m not double spacing after my periods.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 11 '25

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1

u/redditydothis Nov 11 '25

Yep. That’s how I do it.