Slashdot Mirror
Thumbs Are the New Fingers for GameBoy Youth
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..."
It is possible that the use of hand-held devices make one's own thumbs more dextrous, but that certainly doesn't cause a mutation, which is a genetic change. That would be Lamarkian inheritance of accquired characteristics. Both Slashdot and the article are using a completely incorrect term.
Except for the fact that our eyesight is going down the tubes for playing all these games. We are going to be the most versatile group of half blind geeks around. I know personally I'm only in my early 20's but have been playing games since I could pick up a controller and I'm having some problems with my hands lately. If I don't use an ergonomic keyboard I'll be in major discomfort for a few days. I've started taking Vioxx as an anti-inflammatory for my right thumb and index finger. I must be overworking these. I don't know about other geeks out there but I get scared about my hands cause these are my livelyhood and how I bring home the $$. I lose a finger or two and I'm SOL. So a message to geeks of tomorrow: Protect the digits at all costs!
"I'd always had longer hair than other boys. I was a long-haired musician before hippies came along." Willie Nelson
They're suggesting people have used thumbs so often that they are more skilled with using thumbs than index fingers. Not a mutation.
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
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.
HEADLINE: People who use their thumbs more are able to use their thumbs better! Scientists are baffeled because of the "geek" tie in. There might be link between this and runners who run alot can run better. News at 11.
...people who use their thumbs more often have better coordination with their thumbs.
Can anyone say "slow news day" ?
Tomorrow on slashdot:
"People who type a lot don't even have to look at the keys"
"Study discovers that engineers better at factoring quadratic equations than grocery clerks"
"Musicians who practice more often are better musicians"
Robotiq.com is heavily tested on animals
Back in the NES days I would use my index and middle fingers for the b and a buttons, the genesis controller was designed so I could do the same. But once shoulder buttons started to be on all controllers, from the SNES onwards, I couldnt pull that off. Now that the GBA has shoulder buttons, I cant think of a game system that you can reasonably use all the buttons with out using your thumb as the main button presser
"My head hurts, My feet stink, and I dont love Jesus." -Jimmy Buffett
2. An alteration or change, as in nature, form, or quality.
Why don't you go look up "connotation" and "denotation" in your fancy computer dictionary too, cut and paste boy.
P.S. you forgot to paste entries 3 (genetics) and 4 (linguistics).
-Kevin
Well, far be it for me, a biochemistry student, to argue with a dictionary that gives an overall definition of each word, but... you're wrong.
Mutation is a genetic alteration at the cellular level; what these people are doing is training their bodies, in this case, their thumbs, in such a way that they have better control. You could technically paint with your toes as well (many people do it) but it's not a mutation.
A mutation is a random alteration of one or more chromosomes in the nucleus of the cell resulting in different productions/responses.
Nor is the parent of your comment correct, either; a mutation does NOT have to be in the germ line cells in order to be a mutation (in which case the mutation would be transmitted to offspring). Mutations can occur in standard mitotic cells and never be passed to offspring; Lemarkian inheritance has nothing to do with anything, but especially not with mitotic cells. I think we all know that a 'mutation' for the dexterity of the thumb is not occuring in the 'balls' of the 'gentlemen' who use technology and then father offspring.
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) :
Mutation \Mu*ta"tion\, n. [L. mutatio, fr. mutare to change: cf. F. mutation. See Mutable.]
Change; alteration, either in form or qualities.
The vicissitude or mutations in the superior globe are no fit matter for this present argument. --Bacon.
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) :
Mutation \Mu*ta"tion\, n.
1. (Biol.) Gradual definitely tending variation, such as may be observed in a group of organisms in the fossils of successive geological levels.
2. (Biol.)
(a) As now employed (first by de Vries), a sudden variation (the offspring differing from its parents in some well-marked character or characters) as distinguished from a gradual variations in which the new characters become fully developed only in the course of many generations. The occurrence of mutations, and the hereditary transmission, under some conditions, of the characters so appearing, are well-established facts; whether the process has played an important part in the evolution of the existing species and other groups of organisms is a disputed question.
(b) The result of the above process; a suddenly produced variation.
From WordNet (r) 1.6 :
mutation
n 1: an organism that has characteristics resulting from chromosomal alteration [syn: mutant, sport]
2: the process or event of mutating
Free Mac Mini
does this mean the phrase "all thumbs" is now a compliment?
Thank god someone finally went public with this.
For years now, I've noticed myself using my thumbs for everything: opening doors, eating, picking things up, and almost everything I use my hands for.
I've hid my hands in shame for so long now, thinking I was a freak. At least now I can take the mittens off... ~sniff~
Ignoring the nonsensical use of "mutation"... I've noticed that little kids use their thumbs like adults use their forefingers. But the current crop of kids are the first generation that grew up with buttons on EVERYTHING, and were introduced to it right out of the crib. How many kids nowadays have ever seen a rotary dial telephone?
I think it's the natural effect of a transition from gadgets where the forefinger or a thumb-and-fingers grip was the reasonable choice (such as rotary phone dials and rotary controls on TVs, stoves, etc) to gadgets that are button-driven, so any digit will do the job.
If you watch toddlers, you'll notice they try to press buttons with their thumbs far more often than they try to press them with an index finger. To a toddler, everything is for gripping (not for poking) so the gripping member (the thumb) is the natural choice.
If you grow up with buttons on every gadget in the house, it's likely that you'll continue to use your thumb, rather than getting retrained to use an index finger (as getting your thumb damnear ripped off by a phone's rotary dial will enforce in a hurry).
This is no different from the sort of retraining that happens with any interface transition. It just happens to coincide with a physical action that comes more naturally to little kids, hence is easy to continue doing as they grow up.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
You can find the exact text of the original "research", such as it is, here. Google dwells in the sky and rules us.
The thing is a glossy advertising sheet which motorala purchased - NOT a research paper. The word "Data" DOES NOT EVEN APPEAR. Likewise, the words power, mean and measurement, and the letter n, are nowhere used in any statistical sense. The "research" seems to involve no hard numbers WHATSOEVER. The report has no references, although the author has peppered it with the names of her friends, along with vague, sweeping claims about the results of their "research" (if you can find evidence anywhere of where this supposed work was reported, by all means, post!) If there was ever any primary data associated with this report, it is not here and I cannot find it, although Dr. Plant includes a dozen glossy photographs she took herself. Dr. Sophie Plant, the author of the article, has quit her job at the University of Warwick's cybernetic culture research unit (a fact reuters also glosses over) in order, supposedly, to write full time.
Incidentally, the cybernetic culture research unit, established by Dr. Sadie Plant (author of the report), seems to do a lot of, yes I will keep the quotes, "research" into the experiences of people abducted by UFOs. Their homepage reads like the ravings of a new age schizophrenic.
This paper is absolute vapor; even in the field of Sociology is stands out for it's lack of substance.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.