Did you know that the human hand might evolve to better use cell phones, according to research
? You know, quote-unquote research
, that version of inquiry that involves click-baity wild guesswork and misinformed speculation?
The freakish forecast includes a pointed finger to tap the screen with greater precision, gel-like pads for a more secure grip and an indented palm where the device could sit.
The evolutionary changes to the shape of the human hand would not only make it easier to use a smartphone, but also avoid a range of injuries and strains associated with using your mobile phone.
The gruesome concept image came after a study of 1,000 British adults revealed more than a quarter of respondents had injured themselves while using their phone.
The research, conducted by the mobile phone comparison team at www.broadbandchoices.co.uk, found black eyes from dropping the device while using it in bed was the most common complaint.
Oh, yeah, from the prestigious University of Broadband Choices. That’s plausible.
They also made an x-ray
of that hand in Photoshop, in case you doubted the scienceyness of it all.
Hey, Daily Express, next you should do research
on how your journalists
will evolve. I’m picturing something with an enlarged pelvis, a clawlike hand, and a long, kinked forearm, the better to reach up their asses and pluck out stories.
Even if we buy the ridiculous premise behind this conclusion, doesn’t the injury distribution suggest that the eyes will be most susceptible to evolutionary change? My money is on our great grandchildren (plenty of time for evolution to work its magic!) developing a snake-like eye scale.
Clearly, our evolutionary destiny is for all of our distant descendants to attain VantaBlack™ skin so that our ability to attract mates is unimpeded by the ugliness of our cell-phone related injuries.
To ensure this happens, I vow to only mate with someone whose hands are already leaning in this direction.
:eyeroll: This one is pretty simple to avoid. Perhaps the EP people should start studying how anyone who gives themselves a black eye more than once in this manner will end up an evolutionary dead end. Talk about signaling stupidity…
I can’t decide what’s dumber; that someone thinks an incredibly recent technology (smart phones) will continue to exist unchanged for the thousands of years necessary for this kind of evolution to occur, or that someone thinks smartphone accidents would be a bigger obstacle to reproduction than having a hand that looks like that.
This is so stupid it hardly bares pointing, but…The earliest usable mobile phone, the Motorola DynaTAC, was introduced in 1973. The iPhone was introduced 10 years ago, or 34 years later. The difference between these two devices is enormous, particularly in how you interact with them.
We can only expect more evolution of the mobile device. In another 10 years, you may wear several mobile devices instead of having a little box you hold in your hand. You may not interact with them using your fingers very much, if at all, because of voice control systems and other types of gestures (eyes, faces, etc).
Meanwhile, evolution takes lots of time and largish populations, and in any case, humans will continue to use their hands for thousands of other things besides taping mobile devices. Nope, I don’t see much chance for mobile devices influencing hand/finger anatomy, particularly given that changing the device is easier. Plus there’s an enormous incentive for companies to change the device rather than wait for evolution: it creates new markets for businesses like Google, Samsung, and Apple. Can we say profits?
And how the hell are people getting black eyes from dropping their phones while using them in bed? I’ve dropped my phone while using it in bed a few times…no black eyes, yet. I know people who would be interested in knowing about this, if it’s really a thing.
It’s difficult to breath through your mouth when you have to move your lips to read. Not at all sadly, many Express readers succumb to respiratory distress before they are able to reproduce, and some scientists believe the species will soon be extinct.
Okay, this was the post that finally got me to subscribe. I appreciate the intricately evolved hand they have presented us with, but isn’t that a smart watch on the wrist?
If I evolved a hand like that, it would be too difficult to make a fist.
I pass.
I remember a friend-of-a-friend type story from high school (back when high school students were still taught how to use slide rules) that people’s hands would evolve to have longer curved fingers to supposedly help grip a car’s steering wheel better.
Here is a Tommy Makem song about people who drive cars.
In order to evolve these hand/finger shapes, the relevant mutations have to occur first, then be selected for. I’m guessing they don’t know this.
1) Did they give any data on current occurrences of these mutations (or plausible first steps for any needing muliple mutations)?
2) Do they really think that hands like that would improve the odds of reproducing?
I hate to think what such a hand would do to my sex life.
Luckily evolution has nothing to do with sex.
I see the quality of the Daily Express’s journalism has finally taken a step up from the level of Brexit.
You could have just written ‘The Daily Express’ is full of shit.
This is just like how we evolved protruding ears and noses, to accommodate spectacles.
@ 15 The slightly posher version of the Daily Fail.
I remember a similar story from back when the gameboy first became popular. Something about how we would evolve stronger thumbs from all that button mashing. Sounded plausible to me. Of course, I was also 7 at the time.
It was evolved for twitter.
The sad realization is that twitter evolved for journalism. :(
Don’t buy it. We should already be seeing humans with bent sloth-hands from beating off to internet porn.
At the Texas State Fair the other week I was nearly hit by an iPhone dropped (I hope accidentally) from the Ferris Wheel.
So maybe evolving a baseball mitt hand would make more sense.
….Oh, and eyes on the top of the head (like in Stapledon’s First and Last Men)
Evolved hand…to a device, that presumably would never change over generations forever and…guessing…be always in the hand…Wait, what? (slaps self) Just, what the heck did I read?
Who ARE these loons?