What is a Smartphone Pinky? All that you should know to prevent it

Let’s get started with an explanation article to know what exactly is the smartphone pinky syndrome and how it deforms our little finger…

We all more or less use our smartphone, when we have some free time in hand, and our smartphones are capable of doing all sorts of tasks these days, kudos to impressive hardware. But there are several users, who are addicted to their smartphones, and if not that, there are people, who keep using their smartphones when they have nothing to do. Scrolling the news feed on Facebook and Instagram seems to be the best time pass today. But just like every other form of addiction, smartphone addiction isn’t anything good either. Excessive use of smartphones disrupt our sleeping, and we also come across several problems, which could be hard to cure at some point in time.

Among the several ways, excessive use of smartphones affect us, one of them is the smartphone pinky syndrome. This is a syndrome, which I will talk about, in details, later in this story, shows us, how excessive use of smartphone affect us physically, especially our fingers if we don’t hold them properly, or in an ergonomic way. You might have already developed the smartphone pinky syndrome unknowingly, and thus, I will discuss, what exactly it is. Furthermore, I will also talk about some precautions that you can take to be away from this syndrome, and lastly, what steps should the manufacturers take so that people do not suffer from smartphone pinky due to excessive use of smartphones.

What is the smartphone pinky syndrome?

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Smartphone Pinky syndrome is an injury to the pinky or the small finger on the opposite side of the first knuckle from the top of the finger. Due to the injury, the finger is bent in that area, and you can understand the difference I am talking about, by comparing the shape of the pinky finger with the other fingers on your hand. You can also compare your pinky finger with the pinky finger of a small child or a normal person, who does not use the smartphone often.

This injury might not hurt you in the first place, but that doesn’t mean, you should develop this injury, as it is, after all, a physical deformation, and this can lead to further issues in the future. But, even if you use the smartphone a lot, it doesn’t always mean, you will develop smartphone pinky, as smartphone pinky injury is caused by holding the smartphone inappropriately. 

We all have the habit of holding the smartphone in a way that puts the complete load of the relatively heavy smartphone on our pinky finger. We all basically use the thumb finger to operate the smartphone by interacting with the touch panel, the next three fingers are used to hold the phone, and the pinky finger is used to support the phone from the bottom so that it doesn’t slip or wobble from the hands by the force of gravity.

The precautions that you should take

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The best way to not develop smartphone pinky is to reduce the use of smartphones altogether. But I know, it is not the answer that you are looking for, and it is not feasible at the same time. So, you can change the way, you hold your smartphone, and that is the only thing that is going to work. Instead of holding the smartphone the defective way that I mentioned earlier, try holding the smartphone naturally so that it imposes a minimum load on the pinky finger.

If you fear about the smartphone slipping off from your hand, you can better use the modern smartphone holders that can help you hold your smartphone, and it will also not slip off from your hand. Instead of using very thick covers on your smartphone, use those covers that are not very thick, so that you can have a proper grip over your smartphone without any problems, and you don’t have to resort to holding your smartphone inappropriately.

If none of the options works out for you, and you want to use your smartphone for a longer duration, you should better use your smartphone with two hands in such situations, and by that you, you can mitigate all the problems and you will hardly develop smartphone pinky any time in the future.

What smartphone manufacturers could do?

When it comes to modern smartphones, you can hardly find mid-range to flagships that have screen sizes less than 5 to 5.5 inches. Such big screens with glass backs make the smartphones heavy and slippery at the same time. The user is always worried about the smartphone slipping off, and thus, they hold the smartphones inappropriately, causing problems like smartphone pinky. One thing manufacturers could do is, make the smartphones more ergonomic to hold, and if possible, they should also manufacture handsets with smaller screens packing in the same hardware configuration.

It is quite straightforward that most users find it very hard to deal with large-screen smartphones, as such smartphones are very difficult to hold, and at the same time, a few of them can’t also be kept easily in the pockets. What a number of users want is a decent camera, good SoC, a big battery, and in such a situation, I am pretty sure, most users will prefer a smartphone with a smaller screen.

Smartphone pinky is a new type of injury, and this injury is mostly found in users having a physically big smartphone. A smartphone with a smaller screen or a feature phone will never cause such syndromes like smartphone pinky unless the user using the smartphone is holding it inappropriate way purposely.

Smartphone Pinky is clear evidence that shows, how the excessive use of smartphones is physically affecting us. If we do not control the use of our smartphones, we can even come across more intense syndromes that can have a bad impact on our lifestyle, and our physical, as well as mental health.

People doubt whether this is caused by the excessive use of a smartphone or other reasons. But the smartphone pink syndrome is far less common in persons, who don’t use the smartphone very often or hold them appropriately.

So, that was all about, what you should know about the Smartphone Pinky syndrome. Do you have anything to say? Feel free to comment on the same below.