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Stop Your Tech from Wringing Your Neck, Breaking Your Back, and Being an All-Around Pain in the … Life

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Anthropology-Based Computing

Part of the book series: Human–Computer Interaction Series ((HCIS))

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Abstract

Despite the fact that parents and schoolteachers have been demanding it for generations, the human body is not very good at staying still.

Now, you may be thinking that, even if this is true, the exception is that famous “ergonomic” posture in which a person sits close to a desk with their ankles, knees, hips, and elbows all at about 90 degrees. You know the posture I mean, the one that nearly everyone uses…

Well, it’s wrong.

I mean, it’s wrong to expect humans to sit still for more than a few minutes and still have healthy functioning bodies, but I also mean that the famous posture has been misappropriated and is not a valid strategy for sitting at a computer.

In the last two chapters we’ve looked a little at remedial changes you can make to the way you use your mouse and the way you use your keyboard. In this chapter we’ll tie both of those together and give you a couple of whole-body postural recommendations based, in part, on how your eyes work.

Really.

Go on, give it a try.

figure a

I can’t feel my fingers or toes…

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References

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Additional Reading on Related Topics

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Brown, J.N.A. (2016). Stop Your Tech from Wringing Your Neck, Breaking Your Back, and Being an All-Around Pain in the … Life. In: Anthropology-Based Computing. Human–Computer Interaction Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24421-1_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24421-1_16

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-24419-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-24421-1

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