Shaun McCance on Planet GNOME: “Two Mice Are Better Than One”

In an attempt to mitigate the RSI in my right wrist, I’m teaching myself to mouse left-handed.

Yes, and in an attempt to mitigate foot pain, I’ve been walking around the house using my hands.

Say what now? You’re experiencing RSI because you’re using your body parts in uncomfortable manners. If you’re noticing they’re uncomfortable, that’s actually unusually good; the worst kind of RSI is when you’ve gotten so used to the pain you don’t notice it any more.

But how exactly does using the other hand help this problem in any way? You’re not decreasing your unergonomic overuse of input devices at all, nor are you improving how you interact with those devices. All you’re doing is shifting the issue to the other hand, which is even less used to this unhealthy strainful (noticeably or otherwise) experience.

Please. Either RSI is a concern to you (good!), in which case you should decide on one or more of the numerous forms of treatment, even if it’s just a little piece of software that reminds you to take frequent breaks and do brief exercises in between. But a sentence like the above only makes you sound as if you don’t take this disorder’s potential consequences seriously enough. Because, if anything, making your other hand suffer as well is only going to make matters worse.