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Thumbs Are the New Fingers for GameBoy Youth

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the gamers-roll-an-18-dex dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Reuters is running an interesting story on how the use of gadgets such as mobile phones and GameBoys has caused a physical mutation in young people's hands. The use of the thumb is a deviation from the use of the index finger..."

2 of 383 comments (clear)

  1. Hmm, I have mutated too? by Wizard+of+OS · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In her research, Plant noticed that while those less used to mobile phones used one or several fingers to access the keypad, younger people used both thumbs ambidextrously, barely looking at the keys as they made rapid entries.


    If I play a musical instrument then I don't look at my fingers anymore (either when playing the piano or guitar), does that mean that I have mutated in a musick playing monster? ;-)

    I think the author mixed 'learning' with 'mutating'
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    If code was hard to write, it should be hard to read
  2. Re:This questions the old ideas about evolution by shyster · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Evolution (as in "altering of physical form of whole populations of individuals due to external factors") seems much more likely to happen over a few generations. The "old school" is teaching us that evolution is happening only on course of hundeds or thousands of generations. This may not be the case actually.

    It's not evolution! It's common sense! Use your thumbs more, and they'll become stonger, more flexible, and more dexterous. Not evolution, muscles.