Is touch phone syndrome a real affliction?
I love my smartphones. I must, since I have three active at the moment. All of them share one major attribute which is why I love them. They each have a nice, big touch-screen that lets me do a bunch of wonderful things with them. I especially like to surf the web, do email and of course, read ebooks.
One thing I’ve noticed that is common to my usage of these phones, no matter which one, is how I hold the device. I invariably hold it in my left hand so that I can interact with the task one-handed. I occasionally will use my right hand to tap on the screen, but usually I hold the phone in my left hand and curl my left thumb over the screen to tap and slide.
This puts my left hand in a bit of an unnatural position, as it is trying to grip the phone to make sure it doesn’t slip to the floor, while thumbing all over the screen. This has led to something I’ve never experienced before: hand cramps. It is getting more common for my fingers to start cramping up while holding the phone this way. The little finger is the one that starts cramping first, followed by two or three others. It takes a while for this to start happening and is probably made worse given my long sessions with the phone, but it’s getting downright unpleasant.
Have any of you experienced this affect from using your touch-screen smartphone? Maybe you hold your phone differently and it doesn’t occur. That would be good for me to know too. I’m beginning to feel this effect almost every day, and it’s getting awfully annoying. It’s not one of those things that is serious enough to visit the doctor about, either. I’d likely just hear the “well, don’t do that” diagnosis.
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I don’t suffer from that. Maybe it’s because I have fairly small hands, and my iPhone sits in my clasp just right.
Then again, maybe it’s because whenever I use it for any great length of time I’m holding it in landscape orientation, in which case I generally hold one edge between my thumb and my index and middle fingers, using the finger of my other hand to scroll, or I hold it two-handed, like a gamepad, to type.
Repetitive Strain Injuries a hazard of intense useage. Not had it myself but more luck than judgement.
I seem to be more of a mixer upper, sometimes using a stylus, sometimes one hand, sometimes two also with my excellent Stowaway Bluetooth keyboard.
Left ring finger almost every morning when I wake up, my finger feels like it’s stuck and takes a little while before I can unbend it. I hold all my devices with my left hand and realize that most of the pressure gets put on my left ring finger while holding.
Funny, but yes…I have started getting that same cramp in my left hand when trying to text or use my thumb to tab something. I have the Sony Xperia X1. Sometimes, my I feel like I am going to drop th phone and when i switch hands, my pinky and ring finger are in a spasm that takes a few seconds to release.
Steve
I started experiencing these cramps on my right hand years ago as I was spending at least 3 hours/day typing away on my phone, it then got worse and I started having spasms on my wrist. I went straight to my doctor that sent me directly to a specialist…Please do take these symptoms seriously before it gets worse.