Is Computer History Also a History of Physical Pains? (vice.com) 61
"Decades before "Zoom fatigue" broke our spirits, the so-called computer revolution brought with it a world of pain previously unknown to humankind," argues Laine Nooney (in a condensed version of a chapter in the 2022 book Abstractions and Embodiments: New Histories of Computing and Society.)
Slashdot reader em1ly shares its observation that "There was really no precedent in our history of media interaction for what the combination of sitting and looking at a computer monitor did to the human body..." Forty years later, what started with simple complaints about tired eyes has become commonplace experience for anyone whose work or school life revolves around a screen. The aches and pains of computer use now play an outsized role in our physical (and increasingly, our mental) health, as the demands of remote work force us into constant accommodation. We stretch our wrists and adjust our screens, pour money into monitor arms and ergonomic chairs, even outfit our offices with motorized desks that can follow us from sitting to standing to sitting again. Entire industries have built their profits on our slowly curving backs, while physical therapists and chiropractors do their best to stem a tide of bodily dysfunction that none of us opted into. These are, at best, partial measures, and those who can't afford extensive medical interventions or pricey furniture remain cramped over coffee tables or fashioning makeshift laptop raisers. Our bodies, quite literally, were never meant to work this way...
As both desktop computers and networked terminals proliferated in offices, schools, and homes over the 1980s, chronic pain became their unanticipated remainder: wrist pain, vision problems, and back soreness grew exponentially... To consider the history of computing through the lens of computer pain is to center bodies, users, and actions over and above hardware, software, and inventors. This perspective demands computer history to engage with a world beyond the charismatic object of computers themselves, with material culture, with design history, with workplace ethnography, with leisure studies... This is not the history of killer apps, wild hacks, and the coding wizards who stayed up late, but something far quieter and harder to trace, histories as intimate as they are "unhistoric": histories of habit, use, and making do. That pain in your neck, the numbness in your fingers, has a history far more widespread and impactful than any individual computer or computing innovator. No single computer changed the world, but computer pain has changed us all...
[T]he next time you experience "tired eyes," wrists tingling, neck cramps, or even the twinge of text neck, let it serve as a denaturalizing reminder that the function of technology has never been to make our lives easier, but only to complicate us in new ways. Computer-related pain, and the astounding efforts humans went to (and continue to, go to), to alleviate it, manage it, and negotiate it, provide one thread through the question of how the computer became personal. The introduction of computers into everyday routines, both at work and at home, was a historic site of vast cultural anxiety around the body.
Slashdot reader em1ly shares its observation that "There was really no precedent in our history of media interaction for what the combination of sitting and looking at a computer monitor did to the human body..." Forty years later, what started with simple complaints about tired eyes has become commonplace experience for anyone whose work or school life revolves around a screen. The aches and pains of computer use now play an outsized role in our physical (and increasingly, our mental) health, as the demands of remote work force us into constant accommodation. We stretch our wrists and adjust our screens, pour money into monitor arms and ergonomic chairs, even outfit our offices with motorized desks that can follow us from sitting to standing to sitting again. Entire industries have built their profits on our slowly curving backs, while physical therapists and chiropractors do their best to stem a tide of bodily dysfunction that none of us opted into. These are, at best, partial measures, and those who can't afford extensive medical interventions or pricey furniture remain cramped over coffee tables or fashioning makeshift laptop raisers. Our bodies, quite literally, were never meant to work this way...
As both desktop computers and networked terminals proliferated in offices, schools, and homes over the 1980s, chronic pain became their unanticipated remainder: wrist pain, vision problems, and back soreness grew exponentially... To consider the history of computing through the lens of computer pain is to center bodies, users, and actions over and above hardware, software, and inventors. This perspective demands computer history to engage with a world beyond the charismatic object of computers themselves, with material culture, with design history, with workplace ethnography, with leisure studies... This is not the history of killer apps, wild hacks, and the coding wizards who stayed up late, but something far quieter and harder to trace, histories as intimate as they are "unhistoric": histories of habit, use, and making do. That pain in your neck, the numbness in your fingers, has a history far more widespread and impactful than any individual computer or computing innovator. No single computer changed the world, but computer pain has changed us all...
[T]he next time you experience "tired eyes," wrists tingling, neck cramps, or even the twinge of text neck, let it serve as a denaturalizing reminder that the function of technology has never been to make our lives easier, but only to complicate us in new ways. Computer-related pain, and the astounding efforts humans went to (and continue to, go to), to alleviate it, manage it, and negotiate it, provide one thread through the question of how the computer became personal. The introduction of computers into everyday routines, both at work and at home, was a historic site of vast cultural anxiety around the body.
Oh yeah, as a programmer I sooo miss ... (Score:4, Interesting)
... dying shortly after birth, catching the plague, dying of an infection from a minor scratch I got on that thorn or breaking my back flailing corn for hours on end. Oh how much I have to suffer so my boss has something colorful to click on ... if only I could escape this wretched life and join the towers of the Rhine back in 1532.
As a programmer I don't miss Computer Cards (Score:4, Interesting)
You want to talk about pain?
The back strain from lifting a long box of cards. The eye strain from looking for situations where the cards weren't punched correctly (hanging chads anybody?). Then there were the paper cuts - seriously you run against them the wrong way, it's like putting your finger or hand (especially the webbing between your fingers) into a buzz saw, much worse than 20lb paper cuts.
I got to tell that you sitting at a table looking at a fuzzy green character on a monitor with the associated annoyances was a vast improvement over what it was like before that.
As a programmer I want a computerized chair (Score:1)
I think he was trying to be funny, but I'm so lacking in funny that I can't be sure. For the sake of "continuity", I still kept part of the Subject, though it should be "former programmer" in my case (and even though I still dabble from time to time). (Latest dabble was a perpetual calendar in JavaScript...)
If you have noticed my writing in the past, you have noticed my current fixation is on on solutions. (Perhaps "kaiketsu no ikigai" in Japanese?) Ergo, the story reminds me of a solution approach for vari
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Just do some martial arts, mate.
Does not need to be something where you get a bloody nose.
Do Tai Chi, Qi Gong, Aikido or some Kung Fu.
Improves your body posture, you get muscles, and can sit relaxed.
All those tech stuff like better chairs is just faking away that you have an unbalanced body.
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I'm not complaining or asking for your medical advice. And I actually do stretching exercises, so I guess your advice is also silly.
But not constructive or useful or interesting. But was it your deepest thought of the day? Maybe you need to stretch your mind a little?
My advice? Having nothing to say, you can always say nothing. But free advice (including this) is always worth less than it cost and usually even less appreciated.
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Yes, there's a good point that I was thinking of also. Too many young'uns thinking that working with computers is about sitting in a nice chair staring at a monitor or laptop. But for much of its history it wasn't that. You programmed on pen and paper, or a blackboard. You had to haul around heavy equipment, have a screwdriver and wrench handy, and walk around a lot. You just got a new computer and you're going to get the IT team to install it decades before anyone thought up the term "IT"?
For a good pe
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Yes, you'd think, wouldn't you. But consider that many programmers were already doing their programming by sitting in front of a glass screen in the mid 80's. From 1945 to 1985 is 40 years. Another 40 years takes us to 2025. It won't be long before programming the modern way will have been for most of computer history.
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You want to talk about pain?
The back strain. The eye strain. Then there were the paper cuts, 20lb paper cuts.
I got to tell that you sitting at a table looking at a fuzzy green character on a monitor with the associated annoyances was a vast improvement over what it was like before that.
Aye, you were LUCKY!!! You want to talk about pain? Back in mIy dai, they used exploding valves, damn neer took yerh head of everythime the adder added, hard drives heads would withdraw if yer alligning them and took yerh fingers cleeeen off.
Paper cuts!!!! If Aye weerre so lucky!!!
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I'd love to, but I don't think that's legal anymore.
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Where are my metamod points when I really need them ( to mod up Qbertino, despite missing the 6-story upmod of the Eisenmarkt in the early 1500s )
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TFA is a bit dramatic but makes a decent point. We invent all this new computer technology but rarely think about ergonomics. At least with stuff like medical devices that kind of thing gets considered, i.e. will it also cause harm and is that harm worth it for the benefits?
And having said that chairs are probably the biggest issue for most people. Half decent ones are expensive and we probably shouldn't sit so much anyway.
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And having said that chairs are probably the biggest issue for most people. Half decent ones are expensive and we probably shouldn't sit so much anyway.
Standing desks FTW. Though if I stand all the time my knees hurt, so I have a drafting stool to sit on as well.
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Calluses (Score:1)
Calluses from flipping the switches on the PDP-8 to bootstrap up FOCAL. Also if you're not careful, paper cuts from the high speed paper tape reader. Those mylar tapes can be nasty.
Don't Forget 59% Of The Internet is Porn (Score:2)
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He was on to something. [youtube.com] The implementation was just a bit flawed.
More of a Baroque Affectation (Score:1)
It seems like many of the computer-related ailments are more of a baroque affectation.
What could be more baroque than a society with specialized gas-spring mechanical arms for their viewscreens, large cushions for their wrists in front of their typing devices, typing devices that split in half and curve upwards, and an entire industry built around "measuring" tired bureaucrats and convincing them they need this stuff?
We're just living in a late baroque society with all the bizarre gewgaws that go along with
Yeah, sure (Score:4, Interesting)
"There was really no precedent in our history of media interaction for what the combination of sitting and looking at a computer monitor did to the human body..."
Except Bob Cratchit and other Dickens and Hardy characters, especially bookkeepers.
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Yeah, I was thinking bookkeeping and other 'wihte collar' occupations come to mind, especially those with some kinds of regular office hours. Also don't forget people that had the job-title "computer" who manually or with the assistance of mechanical calculators did rote math for engineering projects. And draftsmen who created and maintained blueprints, etc.
My own profession vacillates between sitting at a console for extended periods of time and having to do physical tasks like working with telecommunica
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Remember that many white collar jobs do not involved 8 hours continuous at a desk. Ie, you're walking around a lot, getting new pens, visiting the file cabinets, delivering your work results, etc. Computer didn't have an all-in-one mediocre office application yet. Plenty of standing and walking.
Re: Yeah, sure (Score:2)
What on Earth do you need those pens for?
Re:Yeah, sure (Score:4, Insightful)
"There was really no precedent in our history of media interaction for what the combination of sitting and looking at a computer monitor did to the human body..."
Except Bob Cratchit and other Dickens and Hardy characters, especially bookkeepers.
I was thinking more along the line of farmers before there were tractors, ditch diggers before machinery was invented (coal miners and miners in general as well), people (mainly women) who wove cloth, people who wove the cloth into clothes, jewelers, metal workers, the list goes on.
The human body was was "never meant to work this way..." applies to a whole lot of professions which required us to be hunched or or contorted into various shapes for long periods of time. People need to stop whining that computers are somehow new to this effect.
Irritated? Why be irritated? (Score:2)
Its not like technology throws tantrums and vomits out useless yet hysterical sounding messages like "Oh no! Something's wrong!" or "Such and such app needs your attention" or "We couldn't verify your subscription. Please check your connection and try again" when your connection is fine. Nothing to be irritated about there! Everyone should just develop the hacker expertise to troubleshoot those scenarios ;)
Post post industrial. (Score:2)
One likely theory is that the body will focus on the most significant pain point. This will change based on whatever repetitive stress you put on your body. 50 years ag
It's called aging (Score:5, Interesting)
Farm work and physical labor are also hard on the body. There is no easy way out unless you're lucky enough to get a cushy desk job ordering others around. The real problem is that the human body isn't designed to last past about 45. Most used to die before then of various illnesses such that evolution didn't have any "incentive" to make us last when it came to tuning the trade-offs.
The body would probably either have to spend more resources on the immune system and/or slow down metabolism. Such a person would have a disadvantage in contests and get 2nd-rate mates as a result.
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Ideally you want a mix of both. Light physical labour goes a long way, even if it's just walking. When I take time off so I can walk around all day within a week I feel much better than I do when I'm sat around most of the time.
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You may overstate the point. High infant mortality means that a life expectancy at birth of 30 years is compatible with a large proportion of people living to 60, and being an active grandparent who helps to look after your grandchildren (whether directly, as in childcare, or indirectly by providing food) promotes the propagation of your genes.
Re: It's called aging (Score:2)
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Ramses II died with 96, or was it 99 ...
And before Thailands King Rama IX, he was the longest reigning monarch on the planet.
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The body works just fine 70 - 100 years if you know how to treat it, and have not the idiotic attitude of young people: what does not kill me, makes me harder. E.g. smoking, no sports, or to much of the wrong sports, or using your body in a way that is contra productive for body mechanics. Mistreating your joints, bending your back to lift something instead of using your legs an knees, etc.
1000snds of examples how *not to do it* And in every manual labour job, you get taught how *not to do it*. And the olde
Most used to die before then (Score:2)
Actually that's partly wrong. Many died at birth, many in their infancy and many more before they reached 20 (including the many women who died giving birth). Those who did reach 20 mostly also reached 60 and got even older.
That's the problem with literature giving a an average age
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Not really given that it is very possible for both male and female humans to have dependant off-spring well beyond the age of 45 there is some decent genetic pressure to make us last longer than that.
Also the life expectancy figures from the past where heavily skewed by infant mortality. If you made it to puberty there was a very good chance to make it to 60. Much better than you might imagine just looking at life expectancy figures.
"Our bodies were never meant to work this way" (Score:2)
I know that this is the theme of the essay but I would argue that our bodies were also not meant to bend over and tend to crops, dig with a pick and shovel, write with a pen/pencil, haul rocks and timber around, draw a bowstring, dance, drive a car and I could go on and on with examples of things people were doing that were causing them pain before computers.
You could go back to the invention of fire and point to the first person who burned his finger and say that "Sure food tastes better cooked, but OY-V
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I'm 55 soon and have no problems. As I treated my body well.
It's taken years (Score:2)
but the callus from the IBM Nipple Mouse is finally gone.
Wearing a Medical Wrist Support for a while (For RSI) because the edge of desk was so sharp I needed a whole new desk was pretty painful.
Even in the future some people will never be happy (Score:2)
A constant theme of the posts (including mine) is pointing out that the ailments being complained about in the TFA are not necessarily new.
If we look forward 50 years, where programming is done through neural implants providing a virtual reality environment where we can "see" and interact with variable data like the bits in "Tron" while being suspended in a tank of oxygenated amniotic simulate, the author will be bitching that programmers will have to deal with over developed neurons and the hassle of dri
How idiotic (Score:2)
Without computers I would be working at best as a clerk hurting my hand by constant use of a pen or at worst as a construction worker or something similar, hurting my back. Computers are the lesser evil.
Sometimes pain is self-inflicted. (Score:1)
Is the author even serious about PC pain anyways? (Score:2)
Seems largely an ill thought-out, in light of the comments above, screed against how tech makes us no feel good, which is really about how women, especially women of "color," had it worst.
Computer history? (Score:2)
The only job that doesn't is light walking (Score:4, Insightful)
Carpal, bad back etc. don't prevent you from breeding, though they can make it more difficult. We evolved to walk around and graze, follow prey, etc. This means walking while carrying light loads. This actually keeps us in shape, aids in digestion, pumps lymph around, and generally improves health and wellness. Anything else is likely to be a detriment in some way and require some kind of compensation.
Spare batteries (Score:1)
A few UPSes were chirping and asking us to "connect battery" (despite there being batteries in them, and said batteries being connected) so we brought in a half-dozen spares from storage and tried them. The spares were 6 years old and had been purchased because people figured we needed spares. And yes, the spares were all duds by now.
Of course, to determine that, we did however-many swaps of 40-pound batteries between UPSes that were all either the bottom or next-to-bottom things in their racks. Fun fun.
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"lithium-ion ups"
Never forget (Score:2)
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Unfortunately I did not learn yet how to either masturbate with my left hand or use the mouse with my left hand.
A bit strange as I can do everything else, including writing, with my left hand quite well.
Problems have solutions (Score:2)
Stretching can help a lot with these problems.
For shoulder pain, try this one [elasticsteel.com].
For carpal tunnel, try this one [easyflexibility.com].
For general wrist issues, this can help [easyflexibility.com].
The problem might also be a matter of sitting posture, getting a different desk or chair, but you shouldn't have to live and work in pain.
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Or simple medicine like Arnica cream.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Ofc. prevention is better than treatment.
Pain free now (Score:2)
I spent the early part of my life, from teens to twenties being an intense computer enthusiast, and parlayed that into a career in motion graphics and visual effects. When you're young you can take that kind of sitting all day and not even think about it. But by the time I hit 40 I noticed I couldn't do it anymore. I had back pain all the time. I had already quit my visual effects career for something with more task variety, and now in my mid-40s I absolutely hate sitting at a computer for more than a
Maintain Yourself (Score:3)
I'm generally resting from exercise when I start the day. I like weights but If I can train with friends it's better. Strenuous exercise is great for computing work and it feels great to code that way.
Additionally, regular physiotherapy. I've trained a lot over the years so it also makes sense to take a break from it and heal the accumulated scar tissue in the body from sports injuries. I use dry needling to do that in conjunction with chiropractic and deep tissue massage. I took me years to figure out a combination that actually worked.
It's great for my mental health as well and I think more clearly because the aches and pains aren't there. Incredibly, when working with the physio in January this year, we discovered that I had had a dislocated left ring finger for 25 years. I'd broken that wrist when I was young and indestructible enough to not have had it checked out. It was agony when it finally snap back to where it should have been. The tendons are still incredibly bruised and painful all the way up to my neck and base of my skull four months later but I can feel everything coming good so to me it's more than worthwhile. I've had similar experiences as other injuries were released.
I do it cause I love coding, not just because of a career, it's still interesting, engaging, fun and I love to learn, so it works for me. Buy a decent chair (I like my ergohuman) a footrest, a cup of tea. Good to go.
Now the only trick left is to avoid working with assholes that cause the stress in the first place. That's a whole different skillset right there.
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