Digital-Age Hazard: Sore Thumbs
Feb. 21, 2006 — -- Text messaging, once seen as a way to send a short message without running up the expense of a 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 U.K. One estimate for the United States, whose population is five times as large, is 700 million text messages a year.
If you send text messages yourself, or have ever looked over the shoulder of someone sending them, you know the shorthand:
HOW R U?
K. AND U?
Not much typing is involved, and most cell phones are programmed to fill in common words as you begin to type them. Even so, Virgin Mobile says cellular phones "are now the cause of a reported 3.8 million cases of repetitive strain injuries per year" in Great Britain.
Texting became popular in Europe and Asia, partly because cellular calls were expensive there, but that was not enough to explain its success. Sociologists and marketers say the messages also became an outlet for shy young people, a way, for instance, for a nervous teenage guy to strike up a conversation with a girl he admired.
"Text is really driving it," said Paul Edwards, a communications consultant in London, "because the youngsters especially love the idea that they can do something a little bit secret, a little illicit. It's really very much a young person's communication."
According to Virgin Mobile's survey, 12 percent of the U.K.'s population admitted to sending up to 20 text messages a day. Ten percent said they sent more -- up to 100 messages a day. That adds up.
Dr. Matthew Bennett of the British Chiropractic Association warns that when people lean over their tiny keypads typing intently, "the tendency is to keep your shoulders and upper arms tense. This cuts down the circulation to the forearm, when in fact it needs a greater than normal blood flow to achieve the consistent movements of the thumbs and fingers."
