Repeated use of our smartphones can trigger significant joint problems. To the point of deforming the fingers of millions of users?
Smartphones are great devices, so practical that they have become indispensable in our daily lives. However, they have the unfortunate tendency to impose themselves more and more in our lives, to the point of worrying professionals, doctors, psychologists and even sociologists and public authorities, with awareness campaigns on the time we spend in front of screens.
This time, it’s the users who are sounding the alarm. A recent wave of posts, particularly on TikTok, warns with varying degrees of humor about a potential deformation of the hands caused, according to users, by excessive use of their phone. Many messages, gathered under the name “phone pinky” (“pinky” being the little finger in English), have flooded the platform in recent days.
In one of these videos posted on TikTok, a young woman compares the little finger of her left hand, which is used to hold her smartphone, to that of her right hand, which enters messages and scrolls through content on the screen. The fact of squeezing the device between her knuckles for several hours, and in particular the little finger under the smartphone, supporting the device, would, according to her, be the cause of a clear change.
In the images, the difference is striking: the finger on which the phone rests appears exaggeratedly crooked, as if it had gradually curved to accommodate the holding of the smartphone. On the other hand, the hand is perfectly straight and shows no signs of deformation.
This strange phenomenon has already been shared more than 160 million times. There are many users, especially from Generation Z, who are frantically displaying the difference between their little fingers. And the results seem worrying at first glance, since many of them suffer from this strange twist on one of them.
Asked by the New York Post about the subject, a doctor, however, is more nuanced. He points out that the anatomy of the little finger varies greatly from one person to another and even from one hand to another and that there is at this stage no official diagnosis for this phenomenon. He also suggested that those who think they have a crooked finger may be suffering from a slight pre-existing malformation.
Finally, orthopedic surgeon Dr. Peter Evans believes that the observed deformation may be a temporary reaction of the little finger: holding the phone could compress a nerve and deform it for a few moments. However, it is strongly advised not to use your phone for too long, otherwise numbness or tingling may occur, or even joint problems, particularly in the elbows and thumbs.