The palm rest is for when you're resting your palms when you're resting, not for resting your palms while typing. Proper ergonomics actually dictate that you should never have your palms rested while typing. The best way to check if you're being ergonomically correct is to look at your joints. From your shoulders to the tip segment of your fingers, each joint should be successively lower. In other words, your wrists should not be higher from the ground than your elbows and your knuckles shouldn't be higher up than your wrists. This is why proper ergonomics requires keyboard rests (or true laptops with external monitors) cuz your segments should each be going down and your eyes should be seeing the monitor at 1/3 down the screen. I'm sure you're not the only one who spends 10+ hours a day on the computer, but you're damn lucky to not have carpal tunnel issues if you are indeed resting your wrists that way. Having dealt with CTS for 14 years, I don't wish it on anyone, so I'd encourage you (and your students) to look into structuring their typing in an ergonomic way. Then, it doesn't matter how rough the palm rest is. <grin> {{hug}} danah On Jan 19, 2008, at 10:46 AM, Barry Wellman wrote:
I've been writing more than my share of "papers", etc in the past month. On my IBM Thinkpad T42.
Recently I have noticed that both heels of my outer palms have become uncomfortably irritated -- the result I am sure of having them on the keyboard's palm rests for 10 hours at a time.
The solution: I am trying to lift my wrists up so that only my fingers touch the keyboard. And I will be taking a break at the Social Network conference, this Tuesday thru Sunday.
But I am wondering if this is a new phenomenon, or others on this list have experienced it. I do like Thinkpads for reliability and keyboard feel, but I notice that their palm rests are a bit rough.
Barry Wellman _______________________________________________________________________
S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC NetLab Director Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Room 418 Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman fax:+1-416-978-7162 Updating history: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php Elvis wouldn't be singing "Return to Sender" these days _______________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
- - - - - - - - d a n a h ( d o t ) o r g - - - - - - - - "cuz i don't care if they eat me alive i've got better things to do than survive" musings :: http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts