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Doctors have warned our obsession with checking our smartphones could lead to an epidemic of ‘iPhone hands’.
More and more patients are reportedly developing ‘iPhone tendonitis’ as swapping writing for touchscreens causes pain to develop at the base of our thumbs.
People’s thumbs are becoming less muscular as our need for grip strength reduces because tapping screens is replacing gripping pencils, the researchers claim.
Scientists from the University of Malaga even questioned whether the demise of pens could eventually leave our thumbs redundant.
And if we then evolve a new hand shape, humans could have a ‘reduction in brain function’, which has occurred in other primates, they said.
Professor Raquel Cantero, a physical therapist, said: ‘Atrophied [wasted away] thumbs are more and more frequent in our practice; in fact, we already talk about the i-Phone tendonitis.’
The scientists warned our habit for texting, emailing and downloading apps causes the joints in our hands to become inflamed.
‘In this age of handheld electronic gadgets, for many individuals the thumb is repeatedly used to text on smartphones countless times per day,’ they wrote in the journal Reumatismo.
‘Adults using mobile phones punch out numbers with their thumbs and develop synovitis in their carpometacarpal joint.’
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