My little brother grew up with his dominant hand being his left hand. Recently, my father informed me that my brother had decided to switch his dominant hand to his right hand. When I first heard this, I was very confused. “There’s nothing wrong with being left handed”, I thought.
My father continued to say that it was due to him discovering left-handers led shorter lives (possibly from YouTube or a TV show). Apparently, my little brother actually searched up if left-handers had a shorter life span. According to his own little ‘research’, left handers do indeed have shorter lives, which intrigued me.
I had already known roughly 10 percent of the population was left-handed and I didn’t see them any different from other right-handed people. In fact, one of my best friends is left handed and I tend to ignore that fact overall.
My brother’s little ‘research’ inspired me to do my own research, to find the real truth.
According to a New York Times article from 1991, left handed people lead shorter lives perhaps due to the fact that our world is dominated by right-handers, so most of the tools we see at our local stores are accustomed to right-handers. For example, my friend admitted that she couldn’t use her scissors with her left hand, so she had to adjust by using her right hand.
The article mentioned a study by American psychologists Diane Halpern and Stanley Coren, which found that left handed people are more than five times more likely to die in accidents, maybe because it was harder for them to survive in a right-handed world. The data supported a study published by The American Journal of Public Health that found left-handed people were more prone to accident-related injuries.
The psychologists also looked into the deaths of 1,000 Southern Californians. On average, men who reported to be a left-hander lived to be about 66, while right-handed men died at 75. Right-handed women lived to about five more years than left-handed women.
However, given that in the 1900s children who showed signs of being a left-hander were forced to become right-handers, this meant that the data from the study was flawed, so Some of the people who died in 1990s were most likely pressured to become right handed.
Data from the Danish Twin Registry looked into 118 opposite-handed twins and discovered there was no evidence of differentiated survival. This approach was not biased, as was the previous approach, and created a more reliable source of information that proved longevity and handedness had no relation.
“We compared mortality in a subgroup of 118 opposite-handed twin pairs by counting in how many instances the right-handed twin died first. There was no evidence of differential survival between right-handed and non-right-handed individuals in the entire 1900–1910 cohort … We did not find evidence of excess mortality among non-right-handed adult twins in this follow-up study,” the study found.
According to CNN Health, people once thought left-handed people were to die earlier than right-handed people (from the study by the American psychologists Diane Halpern and Stanley Coren), but several studies since have debunked the myth, and now scientists accept longevity have nothing to do with your dominant hand.
My father continued to say that it was due to him discovering left-handers led shorter lives (possibly from YouTube or a TV show). Apparently, my little brother actually searched up if left-handers had a shorter life span. According to his own little ‘research’, left handers do indeed have shorter lives, which intrigued me.
I had already known roughly 10 percent of the population was left-handed and I didn’t see them any different from other right-handed people. In fact, one of my best friends is left handed and I tend to ignore that fact overall.
My brother’s little ‘research’ inspired me to do my own research, to find the real truth.
According to a New York Times article from 1991, left handed people lead shorter lives perhaps due to the fact that our world is dominated by right-handers, so most of the tools we see at our local stores are accustomed to right-handers. For example, my friend admitted that she couldn’t use her scissors with her left hand, so she had to adjust by using her right hand.
The article mentioned a study by American psychologists Diane Halpern and Stanley Coren, which found that left handed people are more than five times more likely to die in accidents, maybe because it was harder for them to survive in a right-handed world. The data supported a study published by The American Journal of Public Health that found left-handed people were more prone to accident-related injuries.
The psychologists also looked into the deaths of 1,000 Southern Californians. On average, men who reported to be a left-hander lived to be about 66, while right-handed men died at 75. Right-handed women lived to about five more years than left-handed women.
However, given that in the 1900s children who showed signs of being a left-hander were forced to become right-handers, this meant that the data from the study was flawed, so Some of the people who died in 1990s were most likely pressured to become right handed.
Data from the Danish Twin Registry looked into 118 opposite-handed twins and discovered there was no evidence of differentiated survival. This approach was not biased, as was the previous approach, and created a more reliable source of information that proved longevity and handedness had no relation.
“We compared mortality in a subgroup of 118 opposite-handed twin pairs by counting in how many instances the right-handed twin died first. There was no evidence of differential survival between right-handed and non-right-handed individuals in the entire 1900–1910 cohort … We did not find evidence of excess mortality among non-right-handed adult twins in this follow-up study,” the study found.
According to CNN Health, people once thought left-handed people were to die earlier than right-handed people (from the study by the American psychologists Diane Halpern and Stanley Coren), but several studies since have debunked the myth, and now scientists accept longevity have nothing to do with your dominant hand.