There’s been a video game story that’s been hitting the blogs recently, even though the actual story that it’s reporting is about a year old. I first saw this on GamePolitics, and the gist is this: children who play video games before their bones are strong enough end up getting deformed fingers.
The main researcher behind this argument is Mike Tomich, who has an ugly website with pictures of hands where he has superimposed lines to make his point.
I’m not sure whether I buy this or not, but if you delve into the site, you’ll soon see that Mike isn’t just a video game alarmist; he’s actually against children doing most things that put repetitive strain against their bones (e.g. crayons and computers), and is even arguing that adults can deform their bones from “high effort” steering vehicles.
Regardless, this is topical for me because just a few days ago, I had mentioned to Katie while we were watching TV that I had crooked fingers. My hands have never really hurt, I don’t have any kind of repetitive stress injury, and I’ve never had trouble doing dexterous actions (such as juggling or some coin/card manipulation for magic), but check this out:
These are my hands. I’ve didn’t include my thumbs, as they’re pretty normal-looking. I haven’t drawn lines on them either, but look at how crooked they are! As I didn’t play many video games as a young kid – I only really got into them in college and after, with just dabbling in high school and before – I’m not sure what “caused” this, if anything, or if my hands were just born this way.
Still, my left pointer finger clearly veers toward the left, especially at the top knuckle, and there’s a gap between the pinky and ring finger (partially due to my wedding ring). On the right hand, my middle finger leans left and my pointer finger leans right, making them bump into each other while leaving a gap between the middle and ring fingers. These pictures also show that I need to cut my nails, especially on my left hand.
Katie’s finger straightness, on the other hand, is pristine compared to mine. Which got me thinking – are there more people who have crooked fingers like me? How unique are my deformed hands? Or is it more rare to have perfectly straight fingers, like Katie?
If you’re reading this, take a picture of your hands and upload it! Are your fingers straight? Does one lean to the left or right? Could you be a hand model?
I used to think I could be, but it appears that dream may now be dashed.
