# Leftie Techies. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 15, 2003, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leftie-techies/175414 "2003-05-15T11:58:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leftie-techies/175414/1 "2003-05-15T11:58:07Z")
It is my vague, backed up by snippets of ‘fact’ from ill-remembered sources, suspicion that there is something about being Left-Handed that makes a person more technically minded, and that there is an unusually high percentage of Lefties with technical/engineering type jobs/careers/interests. Now I know it is virtually impossible to figure out the ratio of leftie-techies to non-leftie-techies on the boards. So that’s not what I am doing. I am just interested in whether there are a lot. hijack this thread with anything vaguely left-handedness related if you like. ---
**Author:** ![NutMagnet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ea5d25/32.png) [@NutMagnet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NutMagnet)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leftie-techies/175414/2 "2003-05-15T12:12:47Z")
Hi. My name is NutMagnet, and I’m a leftie. [sub]\ Hi NutMagnet! \[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![merge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9f8e36/32.png) [@merge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/merge)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leftie-techies/175414/3 "2003-05-15T12:24:43Z")
I hate lefties… you guys talk about being leftie like you are in some sort of special cult… I swear to god… Everytime I go out to eat with my SO’s extended family… Her cousin ALWAYS yells out… “So who hear is a leftie??” “We have to adjust the seats for the lefties” No you don’t have to adjust the seats for the lefties… You just want to sit on the corner of the table because you are fat!!! We go out with like 10 people… and 6 of them are lefties!!! Do right handed people get a say?? NOOO… oh… wow… I am sorry… so to the OP… well i am a tech… but righty… ---
**Author:** ![Gravity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gravity/32/14322_2.png) [@Gravity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gravity)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leftie-techies/175414/4 "2003-05-15T12:33:40Z")
My sister works for VT SRS. In her office, there is only one male, and he is a lawyer. All the rest of the employees are female. and 80% of them are left handed. ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leftie-techies/175414/5 "2003-05-15T12:41:12Z")
Another **probably wrong** bit of ‘fact’ in my brain is that because women’s minds are more evenly balanced (i.e. there is less of dominance on the left or right) there are likely to be more left-handed women, and that (please don’t take this the wrong way anyone) left-handedness in women is less significant, as it doesn’t mean a switch in brain-hemisphere-dominance as it might in males. ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leftie-techies/175414/6 "2003-05-15T12:42:24Z")
Of course that last post of mine looks like a load of total utter shite. ---
**Author:** ![garius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e19b73/32.png) [@garius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garius)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leftie-techies/175414/7 "2003-05-15T13:38:08Z")
there may be something in it - out of all the techies here (about 6/7) i appear to be the only rightie. ---
**Author:** ![Exgineer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a88e4f/32.png) [@Exgineer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exgineer)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leftie-techies/175414/8 "2003-05-15T13:53:06Z")
Sample size: 2 Me - engineer, right handed My girlfriend - no technical aptitude at all, left handed This post brought to you by the Department of Utterly Useless and Trivial Annecdotes. ---
**Author:** ![romansperson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/romansperson/32/17100_2.png) [@romansperson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/romansperson)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leftie-techies/175414/9 "2003-05-15T14:04:39Z")
Eh, I dunno about techies being more likely to be left-handed, but I do think it runs in families. I’m left-handed. My mom is left-handed. At the last place I worked I was a graphic artist. Out of the other 4 artists I worked with during that time, only one was right-handed. She was female, as am I. The other three left-handers consisted of 2 males and another female. ---
**Author:** ![merge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9f8e36/32.png) [@merge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/merge)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leftie-techies/175414/10 "2003-05-15T14:55:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by romansperson \* > \*\*Eh, > > I dunno about techies being more likely to be left-handed, but I do think it runs in families. > > I’m left-handed. My mom is left-handed. > > At the last place I worked I was a graphic artist. Out of the other 4 artists I worked with during that time, only one was right-handed. She was female, as am I. The other three left-handers consisted of 2 males and another female. \*\* hey now… we may have something here… I am a tech/righty my SO is a graphic design/lefty hmmmm… ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Tiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Mama\_Tiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Tiger)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leftie-techies/175414/11 "2003-05-15T15:00:42Z")
Mr. Butrscotch is a technie from way back when (started in IBM programming school in 1967), and he’s about as strong a leftie as I’ve run into. I’m a leftie, too, but no one would be so foolish as to describe me as a techie, although I’m less ignorant than many non-techie folks I know. He works at a data center with dozens of technies. I’ll ask him for an unofficial survey. Hmm. ---
**Author:** ![Urban\_Ranger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Urban\_Ranger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urban_Ranger)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leftie-techies/175414/12 "2003-05-15T16:25:04Z")
Sample size: several hundred techies Left-handed: none Nope, looks like your hypothesis is blown out of the water. ---
**Author:** ![TwistofFate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@TwistofFate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwistofFate)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leftie-techies/175414/13 "2003-05-15T16:45:27Z")
techy, leftie. Only leftie in the family. ---
**Author:** ![Zorro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ad7895/32.png) [@Zorro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zorro)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leftie-techies/175414/14 "2003-05-15T18:34:24Z")
I thought this thread was going to be about Socialist network administrators. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leftie-techies/175414/15 "2003-05-15T18:41:20Z")
I am a left-handed techie. We lefties are indeed superior to our right-handed brethren, but the percentage of lefties in technical fields is no greater than that in the general population. But that’s because we planned it that way. Fun fact: Bill Clinton, Bush the Elder, and Ross Perot are all left-handed. ---
**Author:** ![Zenster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/cdc98d/32.png) [@Zenster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zenster)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leftie-techies/175414/16 "2003-05-15T18:44:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lobsang \* > Another **probably wrong** bit of ‘fact’ in my brain is that because women’s minds are more evenly balanced (i.e. there is less of dominance on the left or right) there are likely to be more left-handed women, and that (please don’t take this the wrong way anyone) left-handedness in women is less significant, as it doesn’t mean a switch in brain-hemisphere-dominance as it might in males. Actually, there is some merit to your observation. Women tend to be less ‘lateralized’ than men, with more of their brain activity distributed evenly between their lobes. This is why women are less likely to lose their speech function after a temporal lobe injury. Men are far more likely to do so as their speech center is nearly always located near in the same region. Don’t know the stats on left handed women versus left handed males, but I’d like to see them. Besides, us left handers are the only ones in our right minds! ---
**Author:** ![Ego\_Mk2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/58956e/32.png) [@Ego\_Mk2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ego_Mk2)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leftie-techies/175414/17 "2003-05-15T18:53:23Z")
I put my mouse on the left side but use the regular button config. I’m a left handed techie too. ---
**Author:** ![romansperson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/romansperson/32/17100_2.png) [@romansperson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/romansperson)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leftie-techies/175414/18 "2003-05-15T19:04:34Z")
My right-handed colleague likes to have her mouse on the left, with the buttons configured to suit. I am left-handed and whenever I have to use her computer it drives me nuts. I learned to use a computer with a right-handed mouse and it never even occurred to me to change it. So I guess I am somewhat situationally left-handed. ---
**Author:** ![Pablito](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@Pablito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pablito)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leftie-techies/175414/19 "2003-05-15T19:40:52Z")
ex-wife and I are both lefties. All three kids are righties. I’m sad for them because I’ve always had the notion (probably instilled by my worried mom) that being a lefty is somewhat special. I’ve never heard of having any particular advantage technically because of being left-handed, but I applaud the theory, since most aspects of society are constructed to be for righties. We’re the last un-organized minority. I have heard that lefties are disproportionately represented in every extreme/fringe/special interest group: artists, criminals, insane, presidents, geniuses, idiots, schizophrenics, etc. So you’ll find more lefties than average at either end of any bell curve you construct, but fewer than you expect in the middle. ---
**Author:** ![Dragonstar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e79b87/32.png) [@Dragonstar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dragonstar)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leftie-techies/175414/20 "2003-05-15T19:52:35Z")
Lefty of the non-technical variety. Merge, the reason to adjust seating for left/right handedness is to avoid having people bump arms when they’re eating if a right hander is to the left of a lefty. Some people make a huge point of it, others don’t. Your SO’s family apparently does. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leftie-techies/175414.md?page=2)