CONTROLLING a computer mouse with your left hand is better for your posture.
Alain Delisle at the Robert-Sauv茅 Occupational Health and Safety Research Institute in Montreal, Canada, asked 27 right-handed volunteers to control their mouse using their left hand for a month. He found they were able to complete standard computing tasks using much smaller movements of their shoulders, arms and wrists (Applied Ergonomics, vol 35, p 21). It is these movements that can lead to musculoskeletal problems.
The reason for the improvement, says Delisle, is that standard computer keyboards are not symmetrical, and with the letter keys centred in front of the user the numeric keyboard sticks out a long way to the right. The result is that you have to stretch further to reach a mouse placed on the right of the keyboard than the left.
Advertisement
Delisle鈥檚 volunteers got so used to having the mouse on the left that over the month鈥檚 trial they learned to work nearly as fast as with the mouse on the right. Sixteen of the volunteers found switching so beneficial that they kept their mouse on the left after the trial. If you are right-handed and cannot countenance changing, Delisle recommends using a keyboard without a numeric pad.