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Children get RSI from gaming

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Showing 1 to 5 of 5

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Kuang

Kuang

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Posts: 12698

here's an interesting one - a physiotherapist claims she's seeing far more cases of RSI in children because of gaming, mainly due to the amount of time spent playing them. She suggests the controllers force unnatural ways of sitting and moving.

Not sure about this. Firstly all controllers are different, and most are ergonomically designed to fit around the natural way your hands fall. Handheld consoles are possibly the odd ones out here because they cram a lot into a small space. I've been gaming for nearly 30 years, starting with systems where the controllers seemed designed to punish you, and I haven't had a touch of RSI. This also includes a fair few all nighters for major games where in all honesty I probably should have taken a break.

I'm also less convinced that gaming can have as dramatic an affect as playing an instrument, a sport etc. Tennis is pretty brutal on your wrists for example, and footballers claim their wages are justified because injuries put paid to their career by the time most people are halfway through theirs.

http://www.getwokingham.co.uk/news/s/2108626_children_spend_too_long_playing_computer_games

Understeer: when you hit the wall with the front of the car.
Oversteer: when you hit the wall with the back of the car.
Horsepower: how fast you hit the wall.
Torque: how far you take the wall with you.

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Feure

Feure

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Posts: 4345

In my experience, gaming can certainly provoke episodes of severe RSI, but I doubt this is because there's some kind of danger with gaming. It's much more likely the case, that if you sit around for hours repeating the same muscular task, you're gonna get messed up.

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Kuang

Kuang

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Posts: 12698

I find keyboards are the worst offender for that, mainly because of the wrist angle created by resting the palm of your hand on the desktop. You have to be sitting quite low in order to minimise that angle. I've had cramp from a Dreamcast pad before because the grips aren't really big enough, and I used to have issues with the old square Atari joystick gouging a pit in my palm during International Karate sessions :)

When working in IT I regularly found people who had serious RSI in their mouse hand/wrist despite only using it for an hour or so every couple of days. I get the feeling that the better you are at using the technology, the less impact it'll have. By that token regular gamers are the least likely to be affected as they've naturally refined their movements and grip for minimal impact.

Understeer: when you hit the wall with the front of the car.
Oversteer: when you hit the wall with the back of the car.
Horsepower: how fast you hit the wall.
Torque: how far you take the wall with you.

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Sarah

Sarah

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Posts: 4653

Surely its no worse than me sitting typing at a desk for 7/8 hours a day?

Some people are like slinkies,
Not really good for anything,
But they still bring a smile to your face
When you push them down a flight of stairs.

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Kuang

Kuang

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Posts: 12698

It's quite easy for the inexperienced to overdo the pressure required when playing games that require quick reactions - it's that force that probably causes the most problems. There's also a better chance that your workstation is properly set up for comfortable typing. If we're talking about consoles then it might depend more on the specific controller or the size of the hands using it.

Modified once, last modified by Kuang on Tue 21st February, 2012 @ 6:57pm

Understeer: when you hit the wall with the front of the car.
Oversteer: when you hit the wall with the back of the car.
Horsepower: how fast you hit the wall.
Torque: how far you take the wall with you.

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