It is no secret that we live in a predominantly right handed world. Studies show that “roughly around 90% of people in the world are right handed.” Although it is not one of the rarest occurrences, meeting a left handed person doesn’t happen quite as often as meeting a right handed person does. Now this post isn’t going to be one to discriminate against left handed people, as there are many benefits to being left handed, but it will show an observation that has been made.

Studies have shown that the average life expectancy of a left handed person is usually about 9 years shorter than the average life expectancy of a right handed person. If you’re a lefty don’t be alarmed as this may only be due to chance. Because it would be difficult to implement an experimental study to this hypothesis, most of the results found are based off of an observational study.

Although it is not thought of as directly causal, left handedness has often times been associated with disorders such as dyslexia, schizophrenia, and ADHD. Another problem that left handed people face is their inability to use tools such a scissors or knives designed for right handed people. These tools are specifically designed for right handed use and are harder to control and use if you are using your left hand instead. Many accidents accrue over the course of a year due to the inadvertent misuse of right handed products. For example with knives, “They are designed for right-handers – if you use it as a left-hander it cuts on the slant all the time, whereas for a right-hander it cuts straight.” The misuse of products like this can be very dangerous and may lead to serious accidents.

All of this information shows that there is a correlation between being left handed and having a shorter life expectancy. I think that this information on left handed people is good to know but it is not exactly something that all left handed people need to worry about.  Although there is a lot of negativity related to left handedness, there are also many benefits included with it. Left handed people have been recorded as being better at sports and better in school. As recorded by a study, “There were more left-handed people with IQs over 140 than right-handed people – which is the genius bracket.” So is there anything to be afraid of? I’d say the only thing to worry about is smearing ink in your notebooks.

Sources

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-23988352

http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204083204577080562692452538

http://www.lefthandersday.com/tour/lefthanded-intelligence#.VH1Zw1fF8Sg