Hey everyone! I've heard recently that left handed people have a tendency to be less technically inclined than right handers, using the right side of the brain more and all. Does anyone think this is true? also are you left handed or right? I'm left handed and not the least bit technical or mechanical. Just curious! THANKS! I know what counts!
Location: Munising, MI, USA Posts: 788 Joined: 2010-10-09
It might be true. What hand I am actually depends on what I'm doing. If I'm writing in my note-book, I'm left handed, but if I'm writing on a board, I'm right handed. If I'm cutting, or shooting archery, I'm left handed, but if I'm picking up something, I'm usually right handed, and I open doors and my locker right handed. I sew with either hand.
I'm NOT lost, I'm just taking the scenic rout!
My hubby is extremely technical, has an engineering/computer programming background - one of those kids who was taking stuff apart and tinkering with gadets and making stuff, and asking "why does this do such-and-such?" from the time he was a little boy. His folks had some interesting stories about that....he has always been Left-handed.
I've always been right-handed and actually when I broke my RIGHT<and my writing> arm a few years ago, this proved extremely challenging as I had never really used to my left hand, on its own <like opening doors, stirring something in a pot> for anything.
Location: United States Posts: 1860 Joined: 2008-11-14
The idea that left-handed people use the right side of their brain more (and vice versa) is actually not true. It is true that the left side of the brain controls the muscles on the right side of the body and vice-versa, but even if you use your right hand more (because you are right-hand dominant) you still use the right side of your brain constantly to control every muscle movement on your left side.
For example, if you lean on your left arm while you're writing with your right hand, you're using both sides of your brain to control the muscle movements on both sides of your body. We all use both sides of our brain constantly, they are strongly integrated and work together via the corpus callosum, the bundle of nerves that connects the two hemispheres (sides) of the brain.
It is true that certain hemispheres of the brain tend to be dominant for certain functions, such as language, math, and logic being mostly localized in the left hemisphere, and spatial awareness, facial recognition, and musical ability being located in the right hemisphere. This isn't true of ALL people ALL the time, but of most people most of the time, regardless of handedness.
But even though language is primarily on the left side of the brain, you still use both halves of your brain in tandem when you utilize language in any way. If you're speaking, you have to move muscles on both sides of your head, which means you activate both sides of your brain. If you're visualizing while you speak, you could potentially be activating areas of your brain that recognize faces (if you're imagining a person's face), which would use the right side. If you're singing, you're using the left side (language) and the right side (music) specialties. If you saw a scan of your brain at any given moment, both sides are lit up like the Fourth of July - it's a storm of activity on both sides all the time!
To answer the actual question posed, I am ambidextrous in most tasks - throwing, catching, using utensils, etc. The only area in which I favor one hand over the other is writing, where I tend to favor my right hand, although I can write legibly with my left as well. I am fairly technically inclined - I work as a Technical Consultant in IT support, so I must have some level of technical skill, anyway!
Fun fact, both of my parents are left-handed. My dad used to make a living in tearing apart computers and putting them back together again for the government, extremely technically skilled. My mom, on the other hand, can't put a bookshelf together without calling me over to help her. I don't think handedness has a whole lot to do with it. "The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings." - Eric Hoffer
