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Crippled by Computers by Janice M. Horowitz

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问题                       Crippled by Computers
                                                           by Janice M. Horowitz
                                                     Time Magazine (October 1998)
    As more U.S. workers spend their days at keyboards, hand injuries and lawsuits are multiplying.
    As jobs in journalism go, Grant McCool’s was a very desirable assignment. Based in Hong Kong for Reuters news service, McCool covered breaking news throughout east Asia, traveling to South Korea, China and Pakistan. But in 1997, after five hectic years, the native of Scotland was ready for a change. That’s when his bosses transferred him to New York City to be an editor.
    That’s also when the trouble started. After typing on his computer keyboard for hours a day over several months, McCool developed excruciating (难忍受的) pain in his hands; some mornings he would wake with his arms throbbing (跳动) and burning."The doctor told me to stop typing immediately," recalls McCooh 32. He hasn’t written or edited a story on deadline since.Nor has he been able to clean house, carry heavy objects or play tennis. He cannot even drive a car; controlling the steering wheel with his injured hands is impossible.
    McCool suffers from a severe case of cumulative (累积的) trauma (创伤) disorder, a syndrome that results from overusing the muscles and tendons (腱) of the fingers, hands, arms and shoulders. The condition brings pain, numbness, weakness and sometimes long-term disability. Such problems, more commonly known as repetitive stress injuries (RSI), now strike an estimated 185,000 U.S. office and factory workers a year. The cases account for more than half the country’s occupational illnesses, compared with about 20 percent a decade ago.
    A particularly fast-growing category of victims includes white-collar professional and clerical workers who spend their days pounding away at keyboards. An increasing number are responding in a white-collar way: with lawsuits. Hundreds of injured telephone reservationists (预订业务承力员), cashiers, word processors and journalists, McCool among them, are suing computer manufacturers, blaming the machines for their disabilities. IBM, Apple Computers, AT&T and Kodak’s Atex-division, which produces a wordprocessing system designed for journalists, have all been named in the suits, which demand damages of up to a ＄1 million or more per victim.
    Employers are quickly learning that they must face up to the problem. Already, RSI costs about ＄ 7 billion a year in lost productivity and medical costs. Moreover, under the provisions (条款) of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which went into effect this summer, employers are now required to accommodate "reasonably" workers with physical impairments (损伤).Companies may have to transfer employees with RSI to less stressful jobs or give them special help. Increasingly, union and other worker groups are demanding that companies provide better keyboards and office furniture and give employees more frequent breaks to reduce the risk of injury.
    How ironic that computers, the very technology celebrated for making office work easier, would cause such harm. By now, nearly half the U.S. work force —some 45 million workers —use computers (though not all spend hour after hour punching keys). "We thought technology was going to help us, which it does. But we did not consider that we would also have to adjust the workplace at the same time," says Barbara Silverstein, research director of Washington State’s department of labor and industries.
    RSI involves not just one but an array of ailments resulting from tugging, pounding and straining crucial tissues in the upper body. It usually begins harmlessly. "People think they’ve had a particularly hard day or that they’re getting old." ,says Frank Fernandez, an Oakland, California, attorney who has filed suit against several computer manufacturers on behalf of RSI sufferers.
    But as the hands continue to be overworked, symptoms worsen. Tendons, which are like long pulleys (滑轮) directing the movement of the fingers from many places in the hands and arms, can swell up, producing painful tendonitis (腱炎). Soreness can also result from the inflammation of sheaths (鞘) surrounding the tendons. Muscles in the forearm that control the movement of fingers may be irritated. As tissues become inflamed and swollen, they can press on nearby nerves, causing tingling (感到刺痛) and weakness in the fingers. Sometimes scar tissue develops in the area. All together these injuries, if not treated, can result in diminished coordination and strength: patients may literally lose their grip and have trouble managing simple manual tasks.
    It is hard to conceive how the gentle patter (轻拍) of fingers over a computer keyboard could do such damage. People have, after all, been typing for decades, and computers would seem to be an improvement over clunky (发喀噔声的) typewriters. But word processors pose special problems. They allow workers to sit with their fingers flying across the keyboard at 240 strokes a minute for hours without a break. A typewriter, by contrast, forces workers to pause every so often to move the carriage or change the paper. The amount of time spent at the keyboard is critical: a study in Australia found that people who typed for more than five hours a day at a computer had 2 times as great a risk of developing RSI as those who spent less time.
    The modern office has left many employees with little variation in their daily tasks. "Instead of running to the file cabinet to pull out information or going to the library, workers can do everything they need to by just sitting at the keyboard," says Silverstein. "They don’t even have to get up to talk each other. Now they have electronic messaging." Even today’s phones with push buttons instead of dials strain the same tired tendons.
    Admittedly, personal traits and habits often influence who will develop RSI. A pioneer in treating the injuries, Dr. Emil Pascarelli, medical director of New York City’s Miller Institute at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital, points out how very heavy people can get into trouble. For their hands reach the keyboard, they have to maneuver their arms around their own girth (围长), and wind up contorting (扭曲) their wrists inward. Double-jointedness can also be a risk factor. Smokers may have fewer injuries, thanks to their periodic breaks away from the terminal to satisfy nicotine cravings. And what goes on outside the office can be just as damaging as what happens in it. Observes Katy Keller, a physical therapist at the Miller Institute:
    "Injured people go home and talk on the telephone, stir the supper and carry the baby all at the same time. All this does add to the physical stress of the workday."
    New, more benign (宜人的) technology would help. In the U.S. and elsewhere designers are scrambling to create radically different keyboards that will be easier on the hands. But the ultimate goal is to do away with the keyboard. Reuters has given McCool a voice-activated computer that can type words and perform other functions in response to his verbal commands.      Such machines are still slow and unreliable and can "understand" only a limited vocabulary, but the technology is improving rapidly. When voice-activated computers spread through the workplace, probably sometime early in the next century, the only occupational risk might be an occasional attack of laryngitis (喉炎).
Workers who are overweight are more likely to get RSI because they have to hold wrists in an awkward position.
选项 A、Y
B、N
C、NG
答案A
解析
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