Interesting facts about being left-handed
I guess it could be called being “left” out of the loop when I say I only recently became aware of International Left-handers Day, which occurred on Aug 13. Though it’s been a few days since, I’d thought it be interesting to share some interesting facts about all the lefties out there.
To start with the basics, lefties makes up 15 per cent of the population, with males being more likely to be left handed.
On a biological level, left handed people have an advantage with brain development. Both sides of the brain develop in greater equality, allowing for increased flexibility in information processing.
Tying in with the biological advantage, there is also a lot of research stating that due to this, left handed people are also smarter than right handed people. However, “smart” is a subjective term- many lefties are found to be more creative than righties, though not necessarily more intelligent scholastically.
Supporting the notion that lefties are more creative than righties, of the first Mac designers, four out of the five of them were left handed. Props to the one right handed designer – he certainly still had the right idea, though! (Excuse the pun).
Left handed people also have the upper hand (ha, ha) when it comes to sports- because the two sides of their brain were more well balanced during development, they are at a greater chance of experiencing ambidexterity, or the ability to use both hands proficiently. This also makes them better at video games, which to a teenager would be great, but to a parent (or opponent), would be quite the opposite.
However, like anything, there are some downsides to being left handed. For starters, writing on a whiteboard or with an extremely soft pencil leaves nothing behind but, well, nothing. Lefties are also more apt to be alcoholic and be accident prone. This would be a wonderful time to blame my overuse of puns in this post as an example of an accident associated to being left handed. Except, there’s only one problem- I’m not left handed. Too bad. I’ll blame it on lack of sleep and too much internet for now.
Information sources:
Cool, Lisa C. “Weird Facts About Lefties.” Weird Fact About Lefties. Yahoo! Health, 6 June 2013. Web. 23 Aug. 2013.
“Dr. Oz Answers Your Questions.” Oprah.com. The Oprah Winfrey Show, 1 Jan. 2006. Web. 23 Aug. 2013.
Jay. “Left Handed Facts and Statistics [infographic].” Daily Infographic RSS. N.p., 2 June 2011. Web. 23 Aug. 2013.