Why does my cursor sometimes move backwards, erasing text as it goes?

Question

I'm using a 3-year-old eMac. Very rarely, and only in Microsoft Word (several versions), the cursor would take on a life of its own, go crazy and race backwards, erasing text as it went. I thought it was a glitch in Word but didn't mind so much because I could always replace what I lost and it happened so seldom.
But today it happened while I was viewing a list of my bookmarks in Safari. At least a dozen bookmarks were erased. I don't even know yet what's gone, but luckily nothing is irretrievable. Still, it shook me up.
Is it time to buy a new Mac?

Answer 1

Bad keyboard. Just use another one. PC keyboards and mice work fine on Macs

Answer 2

If it is erasing text moving backwards as you type, you need to hit your "Insert" key on your keyboard to turn that function off.

If it is moving on it's own and doing things like that, you may have a piece of debris in your keyboard between the "delete" and the "insert" keys or at least one of them. On a 3-year old computer that seems the most likely cause. I'm not aware of any sort of software glitch that can cause random deletion of text or bookmarks without some kind of feedback from an input device like a keyboard or a mouse.

Answer 3

There may be 2 problems, one of them and most probably it is because Keyboard's key is malfunctioning and the second opinion is that this could be some kind of Viral Attack. Try some antivirus and get your keyboard clean.

Answer 4

yeah its 3 years been now so i think yes

Answer 5

maybe its a laptop and you accidently press the pad while your typing

Answer 6

nah clean your keyboard your backspace is probably reversing your work...