“Apple’s new iPad device is so sleek and seemingly simple to use that one could easily imagine using it for hours on end, but doing so might not be so great for your body, experts say,” Michelle Bryner reports for TechNewsDaily.
The problem is “the ‘co-location’ of the keyboard and monitor, said Anthony Andre, founder of Interface Analysis Associates (IAA) and a professor of Human Factors at San Jose State University,” Bryner reports. “‘You are taking two things that belong in different locations and merging them together,’ Andre said.”
“The iPad includes a bigger version of the virtual keyboard used in Apple’s iPhone, but typing on the iPad’s glass display might not prove as comfortable as on the iPhone,” Bryner reports. “‘With the phone, you can bring it up to your face, but [with the iPad] you have to put it on your lap if you’re going to do some serious two-handed typing,’ Andre said. ‘But once you do that, you have this little flat disk on your lap and you’re talking about the opposite of where computer work stations have come with their articulating keyboard trays that try to put you in a good posture,’ he said.”
Bryner reports, “David Rempel, a doctor at the University of California, San Francisco who sees plenty of laptop-related pain in his consulting work, also worries about the iPad’s ergonomics. While the iPad ‘creates a wonderful opportunity in terms of mobility and ease of interaction, … [it] poses a similar type of musculoskeletal problems as the laptop,’ Rempel said in a telephone interview.”
Full article, with some suggestions for minimizing the impact of mobile-device use on your body, here.
An invitation to Innovation in ergonomical design solutions
Yes and we all know how wonderful desktop computer set ups are for our well being don’t we. He is delusional if he thinks working on those set ups is in anyway good for your physical health.
doesn’t a piece of paper co-locate the monitor and the keypad too? what you are looking at is what you are drawing to or writing on.
i would be more worried about the glass breaking in an earthquake.
You have got to be sh•tting me…
How many people get injuried ready books? Is this a joke?
And the Earth is flat. So, what else is new about computers?
I would think a multi-touch interface would lessen incidents of carpel tunnel, etc., since you’re not having to press keys or hold your wrists at an awkward angle, plus you use many different kinds of gestures than just pressing down on a key or clicking a mouse.
Much ado about nothing. Yet again, another article to bash the iPad before someone even has a chance to use it.
The FUD begins.
This can NOT be happening! What kind of MORON could have written this piece of garbage? As “brandon” just opined, what is the difference between the iPad and a book? Must we be afraid of BOTH now?
As Shakespeare penned in Henry VI, “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” The second thing we do is shoot all the analysts and experts!
I guess that’s why there are multiple keyboard options for those who need to enter volumes of data. I doubt that typing an occasional url will be very significant.
I see a major Class Action Law suit coming…against the entire publishing industry,it will be bigger then the tobacco suits…calling all Ambulance chasers!
The only way typing on the iPad could work for me is if I can comfortably hold it in portrait mode and type with my thumbs. I’ve got pretty big hands so I should be able to pull it off.
Having to lay it down everytime I want to type would be a pain.
OMG!! Is this serious? How many people have gone bonkers as a result of having to use MS POS? Now that concerns me! I swear, there are many, many more crazies running around than there were 25 years ago! And the only direct correlation I can make is there has been an increased use of MS POS in that period of time. I think that needs investigation! Now!
@ B
Thank you, Sir (or Madam)! That provided a much needed laugh for me this day. I salute your simplistic yet eloquent brilliance!
This sounds like it came off the John Tesh radio show… good grief!
This article isn’t surprising in its suggesting of the scope for such injuries. After all, thousands of people are injured by all manner of weird things every year, so if the iPad is popular then who knows what will happen?
Please give a frickin’ break. Do people have nothing better to do that sit around justifying their assinine jobs. Life is a terminal illness. Get over it.
I’m thoroughly sick-and-tired of everything being about safety and comfort. More fodder for the criminally pussified.
This idiot is probably funding his “research” with a handout from the government, I mean, OUR MONEY! Stop the madness!
The “problem”, Anthony, has been around for years. “You are taking two things that belong in different locations and merging them together.” Like Microsoft and toilet. Go “co-locate” your hand with your d*ck, I doubt that’s posturally sound either!
The 21st century “Opti-Grab”
In these times, musculoskeletal issues are in no way on my top 10 “to do list” or my top 100 “to do list” or even on my top 1000 “to do list” — in fact, this issue wasn’t and still isn’t even on my mind!
@R2 You could always type on portrait while holding it like LaForge does in TNG…
How about pen and paper – same freaking thing…. Leaning over and writing where the device and input method are in the same location..
And masturbation makes you go blind! – At least that is what they said 50 years ago. I have to admit I am wearing glasses but otherwise I see pretty well.
Wow. What do you have to do to be an expert?