Peter S. Magnusson
(Quick-and-dirty translation from Swedish.)
The disease following in the wake of computerization is not radiation illness, although one might be tempted to think so judging by media coverage [1], but RSI, or Repetitive Strain Injury. The same posture and repetitive motion, day in and day out over several years, causes problems.
Given the general understanding of RSI today, the problems are likely to get worse before they get better.
If you work more than a few hours per day at a computer then you're at risk of contracting RSI. The more you work and the worse your environment, the greater the risk. Stress in general will also elevate your risk level.
Until I started having problems in 1995, most of what I had heard by way of ergonomics was about posture and lighting. As it turns out, these issues are certainly of import, but fall far short of the whole truth. What I didn't know was that your hands can be ruined by RSI, to the point where you cannot drive a car, do sports, lift your child, or open doors normally.
This despite the fact that easily available ergonomic equipment and simple adjustments to work habits can reduce your risk substantially.
A thorough understanding of ergonomics should be taught at universities and should be mastered by employers -- today neither party takes their responsibility seriously. An overall understanding is not sufficient, in fact it can be harmful. In my case my problems got worse because I was following incomplete advice.
The golden rules with ergonomics are (1) everybody's work situation is unique, (2) you know yourself best, and (3) if it hurts then something is wrong, and if you ignore it it could quickly deteriorate.
Employers are obliged [2] to offer an ergonomic work environment, for this you do not need a doctors certificate or to wait for injury to occur. A fully ergonomic environment for a programmer costs at most 10,000 - 20,000 crowns per year [3] more than a traditional environment, and then I'm including software, hardware, and furniture.
The keyboards on sale today are traps, but American computer manufacturers appear unwilling to change the basic design, perhaps for fear of acknowledging that they're dangerous. Note that, other than Apple, it's been a software company (Microsoft) that has pushed a better keyboard onto the market.
You shoul probably beware of radically changing your keyboard. The QWERTY-model has been around long enough for its shortcomings to be well known and corrected for. The best keyboard I've found comes from Kinesis, and is available for PC, Mac, and Sun workstations. (Most ergonomic tools in general are available for PC, a major reason for why I switched to PC as my principal tool.)
If you're going to use an ordinary keyboard, remember to tilt the keyboard away from you, and not to lock down your hands by leaning your upper body on armrests or your wrists on so-called wrist rests while typing. The hands should be as relaxed as possible, and should be able to move freely.
I also have a chair from RH Form [4], speech dictation software from Dragon Systems, and a mousepad from Cirque. The chair is equiped with two flexible arm rests that lift a large percentage of the weight of my arms, but do not offer a static resistance -- thus I cannot lean my upper body weight onto them.
Speech dictation works fairly well. Systems such as Dragon Dictate have their own macro languages and can control other programs. For example, I say "get mail" to read e-mail, and "next" and "delete" to step through the mailbox. Dictation of text works so-so, but don't expect to be able to program effectively. There is a Swedish version of Dragon Dictate, though it is somewhat expensive.
The Cirque GlidePoint Desktop is a major improvement over a traditional mouse. It is symmetric, so my hands can take turns. I've taped it to a large piece of cloth and typically have it lying in my lap. Traditional mice are a source of many problems, in particular the click-and-drag movement.
Remember: if it hurts, stop. If it still hurts after a rest, for example the next day, then take a long rest. I had to reduce my keyboard work to almost zero for several months last year before I noticed any improvement.
My solutions should be viewed as only a piece of the puzzle: do not blindly follow my advice or anybody else's. If you run into problems then consult with several professionals, and read. A good book is Repetitive Strain Injury -- A Computer User's Guide, by Emil Pascarelli and Deborah Quilter. You can also search for "Repetitive Strain Injury" on Altavista to find more information.
RSI will not go away when new tools for input appear, such as eye tracking, gestures, voice, etc. To the contrary, if history is a guide then these new methods of communicating with a computer will strain our bodies in new ways. RSI in the general sense is a permanent fenomenon of the information age.
Peter S. Magnusson
Notes on the english translation: