A New York Times article explores the rise of workplace injuries that are tied to the introduction of laptops, tablets and smartphones. My takeaway is that these new devices aren't ergonomically designed and are encouraging people to stoop, crane and overuse unusual muscles in ways that are likely to lead to repetitive stress injuries like carpal tunnel. Because of the dual infusion of these technologies into our personal and work lives, it must be difficult in the workers' comp world to parse out whether or to what extent the injuries are caused by work use or personal use of the technologies.
On the brighter side, these new technologies are probably leading to a decline in other injuries and conditions like writer's cramp, paper cuts and fax rage (similar to road rage; happens when faxes don't go through properly).
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| An Example of Fax Rage |
