Thumbs Are the New Fingers for GameBoy Youth

Saw this during my visit to Slashdot .

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..."

"The relationship between technology and the users of technology is mutual. We are changing each other," said Dr. Sadie Plant of Warwick University's Cybernetic Culture Research Unit.

"Discovering that the younger generation has taken to using thumbs in a completely different way and are instinctively using thumbs where the rest of us are using our index fingers is particularly interesting."

In her research, Plant noticed that while those less used to mobile phones used one or several fingers to access the keypad, younger people used both thumbs ambidextrously, barely looking at the keys as they made rapid entries.

News source: Reuters