Yesterday I was typing on my Treo’s folding keyboard in a conference room, awaiting the meeting to begin. The adminstrative assistant came in, saw what I was doing, and remarked that she thought that was a cool gadget, and that she just saw two guys come in with wrist braces, courtesy of carpal tunnel syndrome/tendonitis caused by typing too much on a Blackberry keyboard.
We’ve got so many devices. We make them so small so they are convenient and can be carried in one’s pocket. We make them untethered so we can remain connected wherever we are. But yet, our bodies aren’t adapted to using them very well. Our fingers are too big, our biomechanics more suited to hunting and gathering rather than pecking on sub-miniature keyboard.
A few years back there was a huge controversy about the effects of electromagnetic radiation caused by cellphones on causing cancer in individuals who use them a lot. The jury is still out, but one cannot ignore the enormous amount of energy being beamed through our bodies every time we use such devices, or are just in their proximity.
The fact remains that evolution has not caught up to our electronic lifestyles; our bodies are shaped wrong, our cells had not evolved to resist the effects of so much wireless energy.
Here’s my prediction. Evolution works slowly. Humans do not.
In the future, the rich and famous (and most desirable) will be defined by the number of physical braces and bandages they wear. The devices they carry will cause so much damage that they will be obvious symbols of their wealth and being able to afford the coolest, most expensive devices. And because they use so many devices, they are exposed to so much radiation that they have developed huge tumors on their heads and bodies.
Imagine the stud of the future. He walks by, wrist braces on both arms, and a huge tumor on his head, chatting on his Blackberry Mark XI and receiving direct internet feeds to his brain. Women walk by and turn and stare; they whisper amongst themselves, “wow look at the tumors on that guy; he’s sexy HOT!”