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Sore Thumbs and Texting
Ant writes "ABC News reports that text messaging, once seen as a way to send a short message without running up the expense of a cellular telephone/cell phone call, has become so popular that it poses its own public health problem: sore thumbs.
This comes from a survey and warning put out by Virgin Mobile, one of the largest cellular service providers in Great Britain. Virgin reports that 93 million text messages are sent every day in the United Kingdom (U.K.). One estimate for the United States (U.S.), whose population is five times as large, is 700 million text messages a year.
"
I used to have this problem all the time in the 80's after too much Nintendo.
If my thumbs could survive Dr. Mario, Excite Bike, Punch Out and River City Ransom; I'm pretty sure that they can handle a few LOLs, BRBs and WTFs.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
Has anyone sued the phone maker, text message service, or anyone else they can think of getting money from? Seems like that's the next story we'll see following all thse people with sore thumbs who need someone other than themselves to blame.
It's just a poll, actually. So they have sore thumbs...big deal.
I hate it when people place two statistics side by side as if they are comparable when they really aren't. It is misleading to say U.K. does "73 million messages per day" while U.S. estimate is "700 million per year". The mind tends to think, wow, the U.S. must text message a whole lot more! When, of course, this is not the case. Since, of course, one is a per year statistic and the other a per day statistic.
/rant off
"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." - Tennyson
You may find this hard to believe, but in the UK there are more than 5 days in a year. Perhaps that's the source of the error?
from TFA: "If your forearms and hands start to hurt, stop." Seems to be similar to that old doctor, doctor joke "doctor, doctor, it hurts when I do this" "well stop doing it then". Common sense, really. Who doesn't know this?
I think it's supposed to be 700 billion, if not, only roughly 2 million text messages are being sent per day in america, which doesn't seem right.
"once seen as a way to send a short message without running up the expense of a cellular telephone/cell phone call"
My text messages cost 10 cents per message. I'd have to talk for over 2 minutes to cost more than a text message and I can sure relay more information in that two minutes than most can in a text message and even get feedback during that time. Text messages have their uses but being cheaper isn't one of them. Besides, I thought the point of text messages was to annoy others trying to watch a movie in a movie theater.
but now far from it. The ammount of money cellphone carriers make off of the service now is shamefull in relation to normal phonecalls.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
I Get way sorer thumbs playing Gran Tourismo...
0xB315AA8D852DCD3F3DCA578FD2E0BF88
co.'s proposing a tiered text-messaging protocol on account of congestion in their pipes?
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Also got units wrong, UK does 93 millon a day, whereas they say the US does 700 million a year... that means its incredibly *unpopular* in the US (unless it is a typo... from context, it probably is)
waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
seriously. That's like complaining about your legs hurting after walking 200ft, because you usually just do laps from the fridge to the couch. You can avoid soreness in your thumbs the same way you avoid soreness everywhere else: stretch your muscles (try shadow thumb wrestling), repetition, and don't go till it hurts. You know when you're getting near that point, just stop there.
IANAPFE (I am not a physical fitness expert), but I do play a lot of video games, A LOT of video games, and between that and the literally hundreds of thousands of characters I type on a daily basis for work, I've learned how to deal with digit soreness.
How Jaded Are You?
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This is a bit like asking "why don't americans get the bus" or "why don't americans watch so much black and white tv"?
Duh, they said 700M a YEAR. Hmmm, seems either the article is fuzzy, or they do a LOT of text messaging over there!
video game controllers? Sorry, but there's no way texting is as rough on the thumbs as bingeing on Gran Turismo. maybe for a few 1337 texters who text a couple hundred wpm, but they need to stop with the "texting = public health crisis" line. there's no way it's true.
If anyone bothered to read TF post, it says that the UK sends 93 million texts PER DAY. We only send 700 million in a YEAR. So unfortunately, this is no conspiracy against America, it would seem that the UK would be the text whores.
Sometimes units are specified for a reason.
so popular that it poses its own public health problem: sore thumbs
As opposed to other bodily appendages that have also grown sore because of the Internet?
In that case, shouldnt it be 93 million * 5 * 365 = ~170 billion text messages a year?
What, are they trying to say that Americans dont have the text messaging skills that they do??
-Bill
Read the slashdot editor's writeup again. He's comparing 93 million messages per day versus 700 million messages per year.
That's not twice as often. It's less than 1/100th as often.
I type on my RIM 950 all day, sometimes even when driving, with no ill effects. It's all about conditioning.
"Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer." -Adolf Hitler
"We are one Nation, we are one People." -The One 'leader'
By my definition, a health problem is something that you need medication or a doctor's appointment for. If your thumbs hurt you, taking a break from texting is all you really need. An alternative would be to try holding the phone in your hand a different way- after all, a repetitive strain injury is a repetitive strain injury.
I'm a signature virus. Copy me to your signature so I can replicate, and introduce your own mutations so I can evolve.
In the Philippines where the average user sent 2,300 messages in 2003, making it the world's most avid SMS nation.
SOURCE
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
Wow. Whatever you've done in your life to make you come up with that, please let me know, so that I may never do it.
It's like sex, except I'm having it!
While it certainly has it's uses. It does seem over-used.
Pros for me:
-Have my computer send me alerts.
-Send a quick e-mail to someone from the road.
-Send a short message to someone discreetly in a location where talking on the phone would be rude/inappropriate.
-Get a message through to someone when the reception is there but not good enough to have a conversation.
Cons for me:
-Almost have driven off the road on various occasions while trying to punch in a message or read a message. Way more dangerous then just talking.
-Time consuming to communicate the simplist of concepts.
-Sore thumbs
-U.S. carrier pricing on text messages makes it not make much sense economically.
-Additional way of being in-personal in your communication with other human beings.
-Short messages can be easilly mis-interpreted. Have gotten several people mad at me for no reason just because they took a brief text message the wrong way.
My thumb is sore from having to delete the spam messages from my cell phone inbox. The worst part? There's no option to diable text messages since don't I even use that feature. Makes want to suck my thumb.
I remember reading it on Gizmodo or somewhere, that a company launched a USB keyboard in Japan, which had its keys placed like a cell phone (its very small, and doesnt need a desk). It seems it was for the people (read teenagers) to chat faster.
Those who're using text messaging should look into the patches that let you enter messages in Morse code with one key and any finger you want to use. Tests have shown that Morsing works much faster than thumbing text and learning to send the code faster than you can thumb the characters is a trivial task.
Keep in mind that learning to send Morse code is far easier than learning to receive it since you can move at your own pace. In fact, when I took my amateur radio exam back in the distanct past when you were tested by the FCC at their office, the staffer didn't even bother with sending. She knew that if I could receive 13 wpm, sending that fast was trival.
Simply learning Morse code is the equivalent of sending 5 wpm, which is 25 characters or about one character every two seconds, probably better than a lot of text messagers can do with their tired thumbs. And you can do it without looking at a screen.
--Mike Perry, KE7NV, Seattle, Untangling Tolkien
No. Strange as it may seem, the fact that the US has a population five times the size of the UK does not mean that you have to multiply any number by five. The population comparison was put in to give context. The US has a far larger population but a far lower rate of text messaging. That's it. No need to multiply anything by five. Understand?
I would've had first post but due to sore thumbs..yada yada yada..
If our wrists survived the proliferation of web porn, I'm sure our thumbs can handle some text messaging.
Umm...I mean...because of moving the mouse so much. Yeah, that's it.
Ignore anything I said above, I actually agree with everything you believe - mod accordingly.
It's hard enough to understand a limey when they are in front of ya. Could you imagine how bad it is over a crappy cell connection?
I was able to read those two sentences and know what they meant. "per year" and "per day" are clearly different time period. If you really didn't understand on first read I think you need to slow down a bit, rather than just plowing through the summary and (apparently) reading only every other word. The article is very clear, it's your comprehension that's the problem here.
AccountKiller
I'm gonna buy a phone right now so I will be able to sue. Screw this working-for-a-living bullcrap.
Litigation FTW! W00T!
Virgin reports that 93 million text messages are sent every day in the United Kingdom (U.K.). One estimate for the United States (U.S.), whose population is five times as large, is 700 million text messages a year.
That's odd... Texting has been practical in the UK much longer than in the US, where for the longest time it simply wasn't possible to send text between networks. There's so much more support for text in the UK and one sees so much more online evidence of a text 'culture' there that it seems unlikely that its per-capita text message use would be higher.
Virgin Mobile, one of the largest cellular service providers
:|
Erm, Virgin Mobile is probably one of the smallest networks. It's certainly not one of the largest, and it uses T-Mobile's transmitters rather than having its own.
iqu
Many providers don't charge for text messages, or give you a set amount of free messages to send. 10 cents per message is simply an outrageous amount of money.
AccountKiller
correction, virgin mobile(tm)....rtfa
We must act quickly to resolve this text-messaging deficit in America before some other country wins the SMS race!
--- This
In contrast, SMS is almost unheard of in Japan, where all telephones sold in the last few years have supported email.
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that should be "Sore Bums and Sexing"
Thank you.
~Sir Elton
Fuck this dumb quasi-news. People have been playing video games at home for the past 25 years and there was no fucking epidemic of sore thumbs. Give me a god damn break. This isn't even news on a slow day.
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Has anyone sued the phone maker, text message service, or anyone else they can think of getting money from?
If people could sue for sore thumbs, Nintendo would have gone out of business years ago.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
At $0.10 a pop, it is hardly affordble. Figure a conversation takes 20 such messages, that's $2. That's several minutes of talk time, or dozens of minutes spent texting.
I just don't get it.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
....why am I almost positive that this is not from Text Messaging?
... no, seriously!
n t/SPH_A900ZKSXAR.asp
my new samsung a900 has a really functional speech-to-text function for dictating text messages right into the phone.
not useful for a location where you have to be quiet (the library, etc.), but much easier any other time.
http://www.samsung.com/Products/MobilePhones/Spri
Don't be such a dick. He read 73 million a day vs 700 million a year and was annoyed that he had to stop reading the summary and divide 700 million by 365.
While I like the idea of SMS, I hate the user interface on the cell phone. The text input methods are an ugly kludge and the buttons on the phone were designed for some other species.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
everytime I read a comment here bemoaning how many useless features mobile phones have "that nobody use".
Based on these statistics, people in the UK send roughly 50 times as many text messages each year as people in the US. Factoring in the relative population sizes, on average we send 250 times as many SMSs as you guys do.
You might not use those "useless features" on your phones, but we most certainly do. Entire message boards exist solely to compare the picture quality and associated features of the various camera phones, which is a serious deciding factor for some people when buying a new phone...
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Cingular (which includes the former AT&T Wireless) and T-Mobile are both GSM providers serving the United States. Verizon and Sprint are CDMA.
I don't mind people being on the phone in public. I mind people being on the phone loudly in public. I don't mind people having conversations in public. I mind people having conversations loudly in public.
Personally, I don't think it's the cell phones that are the problem. I think people being rude is the problem. I don't see anything wrong with considerate use of a cellphone in public spaces. My cell phone is my only phone. I have it with me pretty much wherever I go, but I'm polite about its use. I don't leave the ringer on in movie theatres or the like, I don't talk on it loudly, and I generally try and be as unobtrusive about it as possible. I tend to think that if people wouldn't mind my talking to a friend, they shouldn't mind my talking to a friend on the phone.
I'm aware Cingular uses GSM. But it doesn't use it on the same frequency as everyone else, and it appeared a lot later in the US than everywhere else.
Either way, you usually can't (excluding world-band) use the phones elsewhere in the world. My comment was directed at the Standard Critiques of American Cellular Service, which I have listened to one too many times.
Here's an idea. Stop acting like 12 year old girls and quit texting. After all it is a "phone" and talking would seem much quicker and easier anyway.
According to this link (in Finnish), there were 20.5 billion text messages sent in 2003 in UK and in Finland the figure is about a billion per year. The one billion limit was broken in 2001 and you have to remember that the population in Finland is less than six million.
Public health problem: Avian bird flu. Not a public health problem: Typing text messages on your cellphone. Now get back to curing cancer and making my flying car.
http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=30
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
As the statistics say (not very clearly), texting is far more popular in the UK (and I would assume Europe, too) than the US. Cue lots of americans saying it's expensive and crap and don't understand why it's so popular.
Reason is that texting is cheap and universal in Europe (inc. the UK) because of the GSM network prevalent there, plus all sorts of organisations jumping onto the texting bandwagon to encourage people to text more.
Eeditors: time to send out an updated resume: you're headed for unemployment.
T-Mobile does use the same frequencies as in Europe (makes sense, cause in Europe T-Mobile is known as good old Deutsche Telekom) and you can bring your T-Mobile phone across the Atlantic, it's just that you will be killed by roaming charges unless you get a European prepaid SIM card.
Gin Rummy: Man, I don't get that. ...Case in point.
Wuncler III: What?
Gin Rummy: That "texting" shit.
Wuncler III: What's wrong with texting?
Gin Rummy: Oh, you mean other than the fact that it's the stupidest fucking thing in the world? Who in their right mind would spend fifteen minutes trying to type some shit they could have called and said in five seconds? Plus, it involves typing with your thumbs, which I just don't approve of. I don't know about you, but I don't have time to read something that a motherfucker typed with his thumbs. Fun Fact: Nothing typed by somebody's thumbs has ever been important. It's all just nigga technology, anyway.
Wuncler III: What'd you call it?
Gin Rummy: Nigga Technology. Technology for niggas, and don't start trippin' and sh*t, calling me a racist, because I don't mean "nigga" in a disrespectful way. I mean it as a general term for an ignorant motherfucker. Anybody, of any race, can be an ignorant motherfucker.
Wuncler III: Shit, I be texting my ass of. Shit, bitches like texting. I be texting 'em all the time. Matter of fact, I also be texting my weed man, too, cause, you know, he don't like to be on the phone, so I text him.
Gin Rummy:
Only n00bs get sore thumbs! L33t text0rz have phat, numb calluses!
You can avoid soreness in your thumbs the same way you avoid soreness everywhere else: stretch your muscles (try shadow thumb wrestling), repetition...
You obviously don't know what "repetitive strain injury" is, right?
One thing is muscle fatigue due to exercise, a VERY DIFFERENT THING is when your joints are about to implode* because you've DAMAGED them.
* - In a metaphorical sense
The point with SMS is that the phone buttons are designed NOT to be pressed easily (otherwise you might end up calling long distance because you accidentally pushed them), and the excessive and repetitive pushing of the keys leads to injury.
Compare with the much softer touch of a computer keyboard. People type everyday, and they don't get sore thumbs and fingers.
This sore thumbs propaganda bullshit has got to stop. If it's that much of a problem then drop the phone/BlackBerry and talk with someone in person.
I just refuse to believe that it's that much of an issue.
I beleive the technical term is Atari-itis as the syndrome was first identified with the Atari 2600 machine
:D
it was most common after an afternoon playing summer games/decathlon
-- Shoe Lace
from TFA: "If your forearms and hands start to hurt, stop." Seems to be similar to that old doctor, doctor joke "doctor, doctor, it hurts when I do this" "well stop doing it then". Common sense, really. Who doesn't know this?
No kidding. Instead of doing all the texting from your phone, use your computer when you can. Many mobile phone providers have a web page from which you can send your message. Otherwise, try one of these services:
Google SMS, send to phone extension - send web page text to your phone
TXT2Day.com - sends a text message to your phone
bitBomb.com - Schedule a reminder on your computer, get it on your cell phone
In Canada, at least, I have to pay 15 cents per sent message, and pay the same per received message over the first 1,000 a month.
If I wanted an "all I could eat" unlimited package, I'd have to add 10$ onto my bill -- the equivalent of sending roughly 2 messages per day on the old bill.
Given that the basic "no text, unlimited evenings/weekends" plan is 25$ + tax, why would I want to add over a third to my cost in order to allow myself to relay information I can easily now?
I bet providers in the UK charge a fee closer in line with what it costs to provide a few bytes of data in a packet to your cell phone, vs. what the US and Canadian providers do.
A lot of easier (on the service provider) services are held back because they're also more convientent, which causes the service providers to try and charge a premium for them -- a premium few are willing to pay.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I got a Treo a couple weeks back, and while I love it overall, I've found that if I do much typing, my wrists start to hurt. (I seem to recall seeing this referred to before as "Blackberry Syndrome" or something?) My thumbs, however, are fine. I wonder if there's a risk for carpal tunnel from prolonged use?
OT: Giving people unlimited data but charging for text messages is asinine.
________________________________________________
suwain_2
I live in the US.
I text, but it costs me more than a regular phone call (entirely dependent on your plan).
My experience is that 'SMSing' in the UK and Europe is *cheaper* than a phone call, while the opposite is true in the US.
Why is it more expensive in the US if the bandwidth usage is less??? WHY?
It's because it's a "cool feature", that's why.
'In Network' calls on my plan are included in my plan fee, yet I must pay extra to use less bandwidth.
My other sig is a Porsche!
Ummm, according to CTIA, more than 7 billion texts are sent per month in the US (approx 235 million per month):
t ober_05.pdf
http://files.ctia.org/pdf/Wireless_Quick_Facts_Oc
If cell phones made using email as quick and easy as text messaging, would texting have ANY advantages over email? It seems like texting was invented just so the cell companies didn't have to support REAL email. I wish they would abolish texting altogether and do it the right way.
No they do not. T-Mobile USA is on 1900 MHz out west, and in fact is roaming on Cingular towers in most (all?) of California. Perhaps they only sell worldband phones now? One of the nasty tricks T-Mobile does to their subsidized phones is to disable the roaming indicators so customers are not confused by roaming at home. Get your firmware reflashed somewhere, and be amused by all the strange new behaviors.
As far as I know, the only 900 or 1800 MHz GSM service in the US may be around Washington D.C. for the diplomatic corps. There are newer 850 MHz deployments by Cingular, which again seems to be mostly a US-only frequency for GSM.
My complaint about GSM is that voicemail indications do not seem to work properly across providers and phones around the world, once you get into the unlocked phone and pre-paid SIM swapping game.
the US is is still the country with the worst GSM coverage I've encountered.
Griping that we have poor GSM coverage is like griping that Europe has poor CDMA coverage - worse, actually, because at least we have some GSM coverage, such as it is.
If we Americans want to go overseas, we have to rent or buy a phone at our destinations (except for the relatively few customers who already have a quad-band phone from a GSM provider). You can do the same when you come here, and then you can laugh at our ugly phones with external antennae just like we get to laugh at your toy-looking phones with weird little removable chips. It's fun!
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"Folding Letters Into Envelopes Likely To Cause Papercuts And Hangnails," says a study by Hammermill.
T-Mobile does use the same frequencies as in Europe (makes sense, cause in Europe T-Mobile is known as good old Deutsche Telekom)
No, they don't. The European mobile phone frequencies are used for other things here - for example, 900 MHz is an unlicensed band used for cordless phones, baby monitors, walkie talkies, etc.
However, you can get quad-band GSM phones that work on the American frequencies *and* the European ones. I'm sure T-Mobile sells those, but remember, they're still working on the American frequencies when you use them in America.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
I'm pretty sure that T-Mobile is still known as T-Mobile in mainland Europe. It definately is in the UK (and it's probably the worst of our big 4 providers). I think they use the 'T' brand in Germany for the mobile phone part of the business; or at least the 'T-Com' that appears on the front of Bayern Munich's (football team) shirts would indicate this.