Have You Been Holding Your Phone Wrong All This Time?
Faster, how are you holding the phone? Does its bottom rest against your little finger while you wrap your index, middle, and ring fingers around the back while your thumb does all the scrolling? Alas, like so many other seemingly simple, intuitive things we do, this is wrong.
While clawing with one hand seems to be the most comfortable way to grip your device, over a long period of time it can injure your wrist and aggravate the ulnar nerve – among other things.
What is the little finger of a smartphone?
You may already be familiar with the term “smartphone finger”, also known as text tendinitis, text thumb, and gamer’s thumb. But now we also have to fight the ” smartphone pinky ” (this is not yet a medical term). According to Healthline , “the fingers that suffer the most when holding a smartphone, tablet, or video game controller are the pinky and thumb,” which can become narrowed or sore.
Ann Lund, an ergotherapist and certified chiropractor at the Mayo Clinic, told the Washington Post that, given the little finger’s smaller size, it “won’t handle pressure and position, and the thumb.” Michelle G. Carlson, a hand and upper limb surgeon at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, added that using the little finger to support the weight of the phone can stretch the ligaments that connect the finger to the hand. But that’s not all.
What is the ulnar nerve?
After this tweet urging us all to stop using our little finger as a phone anchor went viral, Ben Lombard, Fellow of the British Society of Physiotherapists, told HuffPost UK : “We tend to keep our phones with our little finger under it, supporting our body weight. the phone and our wrist turn inward to tell the screen to our faces. This can cause compression of the ulnar nerve if it persists for a long period of time.”
One of the three main nerves in the hand, the ulnar nerve runs from the armpit down to the elbow, along the ulna (the long bone of the forearm) and finally to the little finger of the hand. According to the Cleveland Clinic , “it controls almost every small muscle in the hand.” Ulnar nerve “pinching” occurs when there is direct pressure on a nerve “at the elbow or wrist, [which] causes nerve pinching , nerve (neuropathic) pain , and neuropathy (nerve damage).”
And here is the median nerve
In a 2017 study , Peter White , Associate Professor at the Department of Medical Technology and Informatics at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, studied the effects of excessive use of electronic devices on the median nerve, which runs next to the ulnar nerve and helps us move our forearms, wrists. , hands and fingers. White found that students who held electronic devices in their hands for more than five hours a day were more likely to experience pain in their wrists and hands than “low-intensity users” (less than five hours a day).
In a subsequent study, White found that “wrist deviation from neutral [all fingers extended] can lead to more severe median nerve deformity.” To minimize damage, “it is important to keep your wrist as close to a neutral position as possible while working on a computer and to avoid a static flexion of the thumb and fingers when using mobile devices, especially when using with one hand. ”
So how should we hold our phone?
In an interview with the National Desk , hand surgeon Dr. Steve Beldner said that although everyone wants a small, thin device, “our hand is not designed to work with small objects.” Ideally, instead of focusing the thumb on a thin object that stresses the joint unfavorably, we want to “bring the thumb into what we call abduction or away from the palm.”
To do this, Beldner says, make the device thicker by placing a rolled-up washcloth or T-shirt under it to take pressure off the joint. (Presumably, PopSocket provides the same joint relief.) It also suggests keeping the elbow and wrist as straight as possible to allow better circulation through the nerve.
Occupational therapist Dina Delopoulos advises smartphone users to take frequent rest breaks and stretch their flexor and extensor muscles by pushing their fingers up and back, perpendicular to the wrist. She recommended using a non-restrictive but supportive CMC neoprene splint and laying the phone on a flat surface to scroll with fingers other than your thumb if possible. Deepening the thought, she quoted a patient “who was immobilized in a cast for four weeks because he had severe tendonitis of the thumb. From the phone.”
To recap: staring at our phones continuously is unnatural and not only bad for our mental health, but also for our little fingers, thumbs, and forearm nerves. So consider this your daily reminder to quit scrolling, stretch your wrists, and get outside.