Slashdot Mirror
Could Your Blackberry Be Damaging Your Thumbs?
Sammy at Palm Addict writes "According to the BBC, Regular Blackberry use 'could damage thumbs', experts warn. Trendy handheld Blackberry devices could cause damage to users' thumbs, doctors are warning. Sales of the £200 gadget, which can be used to email, page and phone, have boomed in recent years with celebrities such as David Beckham using them. But US and UK doctors said repetitive use could cause arthritis or harm tendons in the thumb. Research in Motion, which manufactures the Blackberry, said it would not comment on the claims."
Meanwhile, how about millions of people using their thumbs on all those Game Boys and such? Are we headed for an epidemic of arthritic thumbs?
I can speak from personal experience that long term gameboy play does indeed put some serious stress/strain on my hand and thumb. After periods of continually using my GBA (say a cross country flight, 6-8 hour timeframe), the combination of repeated thumb movements and the way in which I hold the GBA gives me some serious aching and weakness in my thumb joint. It takes a couple of days away from the GBA before my hand is back to normal, so I've severly limited the amount of time I spend on it at one sitting, because of the possiblity of repetitive stress injuries.
He's a wildly famous football player in Britain. [soccer, for us Americans] He's also married to some Spice Girl. The paparazzi love him.