Do you use text-to-speech / dictation much?

Question

I've started to rely on dictation more and more especially on my Pixel (Android mobile device) because the dictation is quite fast and accurate. I rarely have to go back to edit mistakes and, often times, after using dictation I find myself wondering why I don't use it more often.There are definitely times when I feel I need to type something out, such as when I need to use the act of writing to refine and crystallize my thoughts more than speech alone might give me the chance to. But there are many times in the course of a hectic work day where, for example, firing off a DM to someone in Slack by using dictation is fast and works well.I wish dictation on MacOS didn't feel like an afterthought or hidden feature like it does now (I should probably learn the keyboard shortcut because I always point and click Edit > Start Dictation).Anyhow, I'm just curious if other people have started using dictation/TTS more in recent years. What're your thoughts on it? How are you using it? Are there other tools out there for making the experience more seamless/integrated in a desktop environment?

jsz0 · Accepted Answer

I don't use text-to-speech because the physical act of typing on a keyboard itself is integrated into my thought process. Possibly because waiting on my fingers to input text helps me pace and organize my thoughts. Sounds kind of weird but I can almost feel the quality of writing via the physical tactile experience of using a keyboard. When I'm not confident or clear in my thought process there is a slight hesitation inputing text. When I know exactly what I want to say it's an effortless flurry of keystrokes that feels right.

leros · Answer

I use text to speech on my phone about 5-10 times a year. My use case is when I don't know how to spell a word and I can't get autocomplete to figure it out for me.