Hi Ken,
Your point very well made in your later post re connections between NewsScan
Daily and Andersen et al. Thanks for making it and for the pointer to
NewsScan Daily and Innovation News
The position taken in the NewsScan Daily article (and the Observer article
on which it was based) is interesting. There seems to be a very limited
awareness of the details of how hands are used beyond the narrow view
picked up on in the survey.
The reality is that, for people who work physically hard with their hands,
thumbs are powerful and dexterous tools. I can think of dozens of examples
of situations where people who work hard with their hands, especially
in the hard manual craft skill areas, use their thumbs where people habituated
or acculturated to light work would use their fingers only. In the Observer
article to which the NewsScan Daily precis refers, Dr Sadie Plant, author
of the study is quoted as saying that young people in their survey use
thumbs 'where the rest of us use our index fingers'. It may be the problem
is that the 'rest of us' to whom Dr Plant refers does not include the
majority of people in the world who use their hands in hard physical work.
There are several ways that the thumb data collected by the Warwick University
researchers can be interpreted (class divisions, cultural habituation,
symbolic acts, physical deficiency - people not yet having learned to
be skillful with the thumbs etc). What is not clear is that the emphasis
given by NewsScan Daily or the Observer is much more than attention grabbing.
In the original report (http://www.motorola.com/mot/documents/0,1028,333,00.pdf
) the thumbs research is a minor aspect - the other analyses seem to to
be more useful.
Best wishes,
Terry
========================================
From: Ken Friedman <[log in to unmask]>
To: Internet Mail::[[log in to unmask]]
Subject: Designing for the Thumb Tribe ?
Date: 4/2/02 9:17 PM
Dear Colleagues,
Interesting design implications ....
If technology information interests you,
I suggest that you subscribe to the free
NewsScan Daily.
Ken Friedman
--
NewsScan Daily, 26 March 2002 ("Above The Fold")
***********************************************************
NewsScan Daily is underwritten by Andersen and by RLG, world-class
organizations making significant and sustained contributions to the
effective management and appropriate use of information technology.
NSD is written by John Gehl and Suzanne Douglas, [log in to unmask]
***********************************************************
WELCOME TO THE 'THUMB TRIBE'
Young people under the age of 25 who are avid users of handheld
technologies such as mobile phones, GameBoys and PDAs, are exhibiting
a
physical mutation, according to research conducted by the Cybernetic
Culture Research Unit at Warwick University in England.
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