Faster than an arrow

Speaking of Emacs keys - I have lately found myself using C-n and C-p more and more often, instead of the arrow keys. These chords seem like they'd be more work, since they require pressing two keys instead of one, but the fingers don't have to move as far from home, so it's faster. In addition, I frequently use them in combination with C-a or C-e, in which case I already have a finger on Control and they only cost one additional keypress.

I don't use C-f and C-b much, possibly because I usually want to move by more than one character, so I use commands like M-f and M-b instead. When I do want to move by less than a word (e.g. to insert a missing space in the middle of a word) I usually want to do so repeatedly, so moving a hand to the arrow keys is less of a burden. I mostly use C-f and C-b on the rare occasions when I only want to move by one or two characters. There are fewer alternatives for vertical movement, so I use C-n and C-p more often.

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