Andrew Kay: Repetetive Strain
The perils of bingo and the danger of looking for the year of your birth
I consider myself fairly technology savvy, completely at home with a variety of ‘devices’ and the appropriate software that they require to do anything of any value.
Years ago I even converted to a stylus and pad rather than a mouse and I am pleased to say, that was a very good decision indeed. Twenty Wacom years later and I have never suffered from the common complaint of a repetitive strain injury, or RSI as they are more commonly known.
The Wacom device has also meant that people are somewhat put off from jumping on my computer in my absence. The stylus takes a bit of mastering and finding an available mouse to harness to the back of my Mac is just too much trouble for some (not all I might add and to those of you who do plug in the mouse when I am out, please take it out when you finish and leave my pre-sets as they are!!!).
Given my recent troubles with gout and raw milk the last thing I need is an RSI, especially when I see what it has meant for one of the younger members of Team Latest who has been rendered incapacitated by over-use of his fingers and thumbs of late.
A few days ago I decided that it was time to have a bit of a computer clean up. Without even trying I seem to have been ‘subscribed’ to a crazy number of websites, many of which I have no memory of asking to join. Armed with my faithful iPad I set about what turned out to be the arduous task of unsubscribing.
Without even trying I seem to have been ‘subscribed’ to a crazy number of websites
Oh how I wept, nothing could have been more tedious. Let’s face it, once a company has lured you into its grasp they are very reluctant to let you go. Finding the unsubscribe button is like a very dull treasure hunt with no prize, well no real prize other than the knowledge that each day from that point on I will not be deleting the worthless spam that litters my life, offers for things I do not want and endless messages offering me huge sums of free credit with which I can play bingo. I mean really, do I look like the sort of man that plays bingo? No, I do not! Shut up at the back, okay I have been to the bingo twice in my life, with keen friends, and I have to say I did not like it. I was confused by the numbers and miscalled on several occlusions inciting the wrath of lots of rather aggressive elderly persons with silver grey perms. (These days of course I could blend in with my own silver grey curls, but I will not be going back, no way.)
Stripping back my online world took several hours and was very dull. Hunting down that unsubscribe link was a challenge and a challenge that required rather a lot of scrolling. Now in mediaeval times scrolling was probably an honourable task for an apprentice scribe. Not now, scrolling is a process that can induce a much dreaded RSI. By the end of my day I had a sore finger and an aching wrist. And since then I have come to resent scrolling in a big way. I resent it most of all when I have to input the year of my birth. It’s easy enough if you are young but when you hit 58 you are scrolling for an eternity to find the year 1956!
Follow me: latestandrew
