If there was great productivity loss because of wrist pain, an economically oriented outlet such as the Wall Street Journal should report on it, shouldn’t it? Except in sports, I find it mentioned in a few articles, okay. I made another note to look for statistics.
Here’s a prediction that follows from my proposal. If stress causes wrist pain and people stress out, because they think that typing is bad for them, wrist pain should be “contagious”. Take an office full of workers who are doing fine. Then one starts having wrist pain for whatever reason, finds online warnings about RSI, tells their colleagues, they get worried about their work being harmful for them, and some of them also start having wrist pain.
I asked my wife this morning if she has heard of anyone having wrist pain. She works in a company of 200 people, in a typical Japanese open plan office with the same small desks and mediocre chairs for everyone. And they’re typing a lot on bulky laptop computers. She hasn’t heard of anyone having wrist pain.
Why does stress make my wrists hurt rather than my toes or elbows? I don’t know. Speculating and summarizing research about that would be another article. Why do people get psychosomatic chest pain and start worrying about it and that makes it worse? I don’t think it is, but it could be a selection effect: if my toe randomly starts hurting a little, I don’t worry about it, I don’t get more stressed, I don’t get more pain. It’s different with the wrist.
I don’t want to come off as attacking you, but I wonder about the validity of your wife’s evidence. From what I understand Japanese culture strongly discourages any discussion of personal weakness, so it seems likely that the fact that your wife hasn’t heard of anyone experiencing wrist pain doesn’t tell us much about whether they’re experiencing it or not.
I asked my wife about the hiding of personal weakness and whether someone who has wrist pain would talk about it. She said that the hiding thing is more like: ‘You ask me to help you with something. I’m busy or in pain or whatever, but I can’t reject a request, so I have to hide my issue.’ She says that at her workplace people talk openly about pain and if someone had wrist pain, they would wonder about it and ask their colleagues.
Of course, a samurai would never show personal weakness. ;-)
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is the #1 reported medical problem, accounting for about 50% of all work-related injuries
Presently, the costs to businesses that employ workers at high risk to develop Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and other Repetitive Stress Injuries is staggering. It is estimated that RSI “costs employers over $80 billion yearly.”
Thanks for calling me out on that. I added a paragraph about statistics.
By the way, if the cost was $80 billion and suppose the percentage of cases like mine was 10 %, that would be $8 billion caused by the common advice that doesn’t take into account cases like mine. What are the actual numbers and how much does the common advice decrease cost vs increase it?
Charlie Steiner, your comment misquotes me.
If there was great productivity loss because of wrist pain, an economically oriented outlet such as the Wall Street Journal should report on it, shouldn’t it? Except in sports, I find it mentioned in a few articles, okay. I made another note to look for statistics.
Here’s a prediction that follows from my proposal. If stress causes wrist pain and people stress out, because they think that typing is bad for them, wrist pain should be “contagious”. Take an office full of workers who are doing fine. Then one starts having wrist pain for whatever reason, finds online warnings about RSI, tells their colleagues, they get worried about their work being harmful for them, and some of them also start having wrist pain.
I asked my wife this morning if she has heard of anyone having wrist pain. She works in a company of 200 people, in a typical Japanese open plan office with the same small desks and mediocre chairs for everyone. And they’re typing a lot on bulky laptop computers. She hasn’t heard of anyone having wrist pain.
Why does stress make my wrists hurt rather than my toes or elbows? I don’t know. Speculating and summarizing research about that would be another article. Why do people get psychosomatic chest pain and start worrying about it and that makes it worse? I don’t think it is, but it could be a selection effect: if my toe randomly starts hurting a little, I don’t worry about it, I don’t get more stressed, I don’t get more pain. It’s different with the wrist.
I don’t want to come off as attacking you, but I wonder about the validity of your wife’s evidence. From what I understand Japanese culture strongly discourages any discussion of personal weakness, so it seems likely that the fact that your wife hasn’t heard of anyone experiencing wrist pain doesn’t tell us much about whether they’re experiencing it or not.
You’re welcome to attack my reasoning.
I asked my wife about the hiding of personal weakness and whether someone who has wrist pain would talk about it. She said that the hiding thing is more like: ‘You ask me to help you with something. I’m busy or in pain or whatever, but I can’t reject a request, so I have to hide my issue.’ She says that at her workplace people talk openly about pain and if someone had wrist pain, they would wonder about it and ask their colleagues.
Of course, a samurai would never show personal weakness. ;-)
Quick Googling suggests:
Thanks for calling me out on that. I added a paragraph about statistics.
By the way, if the cost was $80 billion and suppose the percentage of cases like mine was 10 %, that would be $8 billion caused by the common advice that doesn’t take into account cases like mine. What are the actual numbers and how much does the common advice decrease cost vs increase it?