Righty here, currently using the mouse with my left hand, with the buttons switched.
I started mousing left-handed about 13 years ago, when my husband had major surgery on his right arm and switched the mouse on our desktop to lefty. I had the choice of either switching it back every time I wanted to use the computer, or learning to mouse lefty. Laziness won out, and I became very good at lefty mousing.
Later, when I got laid off and began temping, it was a useful skill, as I could sit at anyone’s desk and be comfortable with the mouse, whether the normal user of the desk was lefty or righty. When I got a full-time job, the firm kept moving me from desk to desk every few months, so I just set up the mouse on whatever side of the desk was most convenient.
Currently I’ve got the mouse set up for lefty, as the desk I’m at right now has more room on the side of the keyboard tray. At my last desk I had it righty for a long time, but I injured my right hand making cherry jam (too much squeezing the cherry pitter made my old tendonitis flare up) so I switched to lefty.
The odd thing is, the actual few left-handers in my firm put their mouses (mice?) on the left side but don’t switch the buttons - which confuses me no end if I’m at their computer to show them something and want to use their mouse. And of course the righties get confused when they need to use my computer mouse - fun for everyone!
Southpaw here. I’ve always used my right hand when using a mouse unless trying to draw something in which case I struggle to use the righthanded mouse leftily!
I’m left-handed, and when I got my first computer, the mouse was on the right hand side of the computer. It never occured to me to change that; I just learned to use the mouse with my right hand. It’d be way awkward to use my left hand now, especially with the left and right click buttons. (since in my mind, index finger = left click, and if I used my left hand, index finger = right click).
I’m very strongly right-handed, but too much mousing gave me problems with my right wrist, and I switched to left-handed mousing for all but the finest-grained tasks probably five years ago. The problem is that my left wrist is beginning to hurt a bit, too.
I changed my office mouse to left-handed shortly after that thread, and also swapped left/right mouse buttons (which turned out to be easier - apparently my brain conceptualized the actions as index-finger-click and middle-finger-click rather than left-click and right-click. Took only a few days to get used to, but our IT guy still gets when he installs some software on my PC.
BTW I right-mouse on my private laptop (so I get mild tennis elbow in both arms rather than severe tennis elbow in one).
Oh my! I was in the “Why Are Shoulders Hot” thread, and forgot it had been moved to IMHO from GQ. Thinking it was a general question, I parsed the title of this thread asCan you get a mous off with your handStupid speed reading.
Yup - I’m another righty with repetitive stress injury who had to go lefty. My jobs usually involve lots of data entry with the numeric keypad and my right hand, so I mouse exclusively with my left to balance the damage out. I leave the buttons the same as right mousing; it doesn’t confuse me at all. It used to be a pain to play games with my left hand, but it’s not an issue any longer (plus, playing games with your left hand mousing increases your dexterity).
For those of you who switched, did anyone else notice a weird mental effect in the transition? I can’t really describe it, but it felt like I was thinking different. Probably from different parts of my brain having to work.
I occassionally can’t remember what button does what, even though I didn’t switch them, but I tend to confuse left and right anyway.
Yes. I am very super extremely right-handed, but I didn’t know any better when I got my first computer with it’s short-corded mouse. When I got desk, computer and mouse #2, I switched to right handed mousing.
Fifteen or so years after that, I broke my right collarbone and shoulder. I moved this mouse to the left, with barely a glitch, and am still mousing lefty because it is more comfortable.
I 10-key lefty, too for roughly the same reasons – an early, badly arranged office and later reinforcement by a fractured right wrist.
As other mentioned, it’s easier to use the mouse with my left hand so that I can use the 10-key pad with my right. This was also useful when I played video games.
Lefty here. I use my mouse on my home desktop with my left hand. At work I use my right hand because I don’t use the same computer all the time at work. It kind of balances out and who knows may reduce the chance of me getting carpal tunnel.
I’m a lefty, and I first learned to mouse right-handed, since that’s the default position. I’m not sure I could do it left-handed now. The only other things I can do right-handed are throw frisbees and softballs. I remember have to re-train myself to throw with the right because we couldn’t find any softball gloves for the right hand when I was a kid.
Being old enough to remember when the mouse first came out (“that’ll never catch on”, I thought - another great prediction), I decided it was more logical to learn to use it with my left hand. That left my right hand free to do things that I was used to doing with my right hand, e.g. writing. Plus the parts of the keyboard that you might want to use while mousing are generally on the right, e.g. numeric key pad, Enter key, Insert/Delete.
I’m a lefty who uses the mouse on the left, but with right-configured buttons.
At work, I use a dozen or so shared computers. If I am going to be there for a while, I’ll move the mouse over, but if it’s only to print something or whatever, I’ll put up with the mouse being where it is.
Sometimes, when I move it over, I forget to move it back. Geez, don’t the right-handed crowd let you know it, too! Even if only jokingly, they ALWAYS have to mention it. This pisses me off, given that almost every single time I use a public computer anywhere, ever, the mouse is on the right, and I’m expected to just shut up and deal. Some of the work computers even have the cord wrapped around so much shit that I can’t even move it to the left.