[conception]

The most obvious and large scale example of this I’ve seen is carpal tunnel syndrome in the 1990s and early 2000s. everybody had carpal tunnel syndrome and then just one day it all went away. not that the people who were suffering with it were faking anything. it’s just what was on everybody’s mind and then it wasn’t.

[bb88]

Assuming that what you're saying is true -- (not ai) and I'm not sure it is. The big difference could be that kids get computers for school now. I used pen and paper to take notes, and I didn't sit at a computer for 8 hours a day until my first job in the 1990's. I'm sure that's true for a lot of people.

It's possible people have "grown into" a keyboard better than the previous generations did.

Further, before the 1990's there was a secretarial pool where managers would send documents to get typed out. Sometime during the 1990's the pool went away and people were expected to type their own documents up. Sure they could create templates now with WordPerfect, say, but the idea is that the keyboard became more and more present in an employees life around that time -- so hence more likely to get carpal tunnel.

[bsder]

> everybody had carpal tunnel syndrome and then just one day it all went away.

It didn't. It just became a routine thing to be diagnosed.

When I had wrist surgery for an accident, every single data entry person at the hospital (almost a dozen of them) knew the surgeon I was going to because they all had their wrists operated on because of ailments from the cheap-ass computer stuff they were using.

You would think that the hospital and insurance provider would see the link and decide that maybe providing better ergonomic conditions would be useful, but ... no. Putting people in for surgery doesn't come off the budget while ergonomic workstations would. So, here we are.

It also doesn't hurt that most tech workers are cognizant of the problem and now happen to be paid well enough that they can do something about it.

[conception]

No, it did.

https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2024/03/the-rise-and-mys...

From 60% to 9%.

[bsder]

That is conflating two VERY different numbers. 60% is percentage of reported workplace injuries. 9% is of all adults.

That makes me suspect that the total number of RSI cases is much larger right now than from back in 1990. This would back up my assertion that RSI simply became a mainstream medical diagnosis.

And, do note that the data is confounded by being taken during Covid. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr189.pdf

[conception]

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/why-carpal-tunnel...

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/wr/mm6739a4.htm Generally the rate was lower in the latter years for this study.

Not that I think it’s not a real thing and lots of people don’t get it - but in the 90’s it was definitely a “fad” diagnosis.

[bannable]

I'd think the decline of CTS is better explained by improvements in our material design: our interfaces with the physical world are much less hostile today than in '90 and cause us less harm. For example, consider the NES/N64 controllers versus a modern PS5 controller.

[conception]

I dunno. Cheap keyboards are definitely worse today.

[stubish]

Most people are also using keyboards less, spending more time waggling their mouse or having a break watching youtube. And people who are mostly employed to type, doing data entry or similar, have problems and physical therapists who understand the problems.

Carpel tunnel and RSI also predates computers. Musicians still suffer this sort of injury, generally by forcing themselves to keep playing when it hurts. Poor computer ergonomics just made it popular.