Rupert Goodwins' Diary

Friday 1/2/2002

Oh no! Video game controllers can give your kiddiwinks whitefinger! Doctors alert the world to a worrying new syndrome, first seen in a 15-year-old boy who played on his PlayStation for seven hours a day. His vibrating controller gave him 'hand-arm vibration syndrome', otherwise known as whitefinger because of the way it affects circulation. The aghast medicos point out that this is normally only a problem if you're a pneumatic drill operator.

Two things: first, if your fingers don't drop off on that sort of gameplaying schedule you're probably some sort of replicant, and second... this is nothing new. "Michelle LaBruzzy, a 17-year -old in Michigan, is suing Nintendo after developing an inflamed thumb from playing her home video game too much. She claims that her 'Nintendinitis' prevents her writing and interferes with school work." -- or so said the Carolina Critic on 15th December, 1991.

So far, the human race has survived. Don't know about Michelle LaBruzzy, though.