Smartphone pinky joins list of tech injuries

Cell Phone Elbow, Smartphone Neck Pain, Texting Claw, and now Smartphone Pinky, the newest tech injury.

No one has studied Smartphone Pinky yet, but a plethora of Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok users claim it’s real with photographic evidence.

Supposedly a dent appears in the little finger on the middle bone. Sometimes people say the position of their pinky changes, or that the finger starts to sway downward from the knuckle.

You might check yours.

Although the supposed malady is debated, notice that most people do hold their phones so that the little finger takes most of the weight.

According to The Conversation, the change in the little finger might well be just a soft tissue compression from the constant weight of the phone. Unlike Cell Phone Elbow, no one has reported actual pain from the little finger.

With Cell Phone Elbow, pain and tingling in the forearm and little finger come from holding a mobile phone up to the ear or holding it while lying in bed for a long time. The pain comes from the shoulder-rubbing the ulnar nerve, one of the major nerves in the arm. Just six minutes of those postures increase the strain on the nerve by 69 percent.

Texting Claw is a repetitive strain injury that presents as pain in the thumb and wrist. It comes from making small repetitive movements with the thumb against the screen. Reduced texting appears to alleviate the problem.

Finally, neck pain can come from staring down at a screen for a prolonged period, which increases strain on the shoulder blade.