Recently, there have been some reports that dexterity, applied to specific activities is being compromised by the increasing use of the screen/hand interface on smartphones and computers. Firstly, by virtue of the repetitive manual aspect – touching and pressing with a finger tip to get a virtual response during screen interaction, and secondly, simply because of the time we spend using computers and other digital devices, that subtracts from the time we spend doing other, perhaps more creative activities.

It would be most difficult to set up a study to prove this one way or another, I think, but my own experience is that there may be a connection. I’ll write more fully in due course, but just consider one simple thing for the moment: if the thumb is increasingly and  consistently used as a ‘finger’, thus removing it from it’s evolutionary, pinching and grasping – its ‘oppositional’ role within the use of the hand, then it might follow that its intended use and  the neural  connections needed to do this, might weaken proportionately.