Discussion summary
A bug affecting only left-handed users on LinkedIn caused accidental likes when scrolling. Users discussed the issue's implications, potential design biases, and age-related finger challenges.
What the discussion says
- Left-handed users experience accidental interactions due to UI placement.
- Some suggest avoiding LinkedIn or using alternative methods.
- Concerns about dark patterns encouraging accidental clicks.
- Age-related finger dexterity issues affect smartphone use.
“I'm left handed and often accidentally like posts on LinkedIn mobile.”
“The 'like' button is very close to where I naturally touch the screen.”
Join the discussion
Write your take first — we'll ask for email only when you're ready to publish.
- Hacker News
- The older I get, the more sausage fingers I get.by sscaryterry
- One of the great things about promoting LLMs is I don't have to care about sausage finger typos any moreby walthamstow
- To obtain a special dialling wand, please mash the keypad with your palm nowby dools
- > The older I get, the more sausage fingers I get.
It seems with age fingers do not just get fatter (feet too btw) but also get drier. So the keys do not register as well on smartphones: older people hitting right in the middle of the virtual keys, one by one, in a slow but decided manner are not "just old". There's apparently some science behind it.
- something similar actually really annoys me on linkedin mobile, I'm left handed and often accidentally like posts if I scroll my feed as the like button is very close to where I naturally touch the screen to scroll.by sixhobbits
- The solution is simple : don’t use LinkedIn :) I only use it when looking for a job and I never look at the “feed” (what’s that for anyway?)
- I'm not left-handed, but I often scroll my phone with my left thumb. My right hand is on my computer mouse, or holding a pen, or employed to make precise touches on the phone screen with my right index finger, or briefly comes over to join with my left thumb for typing...
Scrolling doesn't require much precision, and I naturally hold my phone in my left hand.
- sometimes I wonder if things like this are actually dark patterns to _encourage_ accidentally clicking 'like' etc.
similar to how in Threads, the '...' icon (under which 'save' is hidden) is so small that half the time clicking on it just clicks the entire thread (opening it to view replies) -- sometimes I suspect they make the target extra small on purpose
or how on FB, some of the options in the menu are now under the AI generated content, which pops in just slowly enough to encourage misclicks as items shift under your finger
all to make some PM's numbers go up, of course...
by nja - I'm right-handed, and I hold my phone in my left hand and scroll my phone with my left thumb.
- It makes sense to use the left hand as phone holder to be free to use the right hand to do some other activity, example: I will have my breakfast while reading HN.
However I usually keep my phone with my right hand and scroll with my right thumb. Furthermore I am writing this comment by swiping with my right thumb. I can swipe with my left thumb but I'm not as accurate.
by pmontra - As i was scrolling the comments with my left hand, i inadvertently opened comment replies three times...by queenkjuul
- > A bug which won't be triggered by righteous people but infuriating to those who will surely be left behind after The Rapture™.
Or perhaps the righteous versus the sinister.
by Terr_ - I approve of Latin jokes. Well done.by PTOB
- Right-handed, and I run into this bug constantly.by cwillu
- I had to read this a couple times and look at the comments here before I realized they were talking about scrolling on a phone. I was like "who scrolls with their thumb?"by BrenBarn
- Trackballs are a thing as well.by Zecc
- I'm righthanded and I usually hold my phone in my left hand so I can do clicking and typing with my right hand, but I often do basic scrolling with my left thumb.by gpvos
- I'm a man with typically sized hands. I can barely do anything one-handed on a phone. Phones are so big they basically require two-handed operation for me. Like you, I typically hold it in my left hand, so I can use my right hand to tap stuff.by recursive
- The worst curse put upon us is XNA games engine, which was unable to distinguish primary from secondary clicks. So players who swapped mouse buttons at the OS level were out of luck.
Most developers assumed that left click = primary click, but that's only true about 95% of the time.
Terraria, among others, still has this bug.
by Gunax - As a lefty, his tongue in cheek derision toward lefties still pisses me off genuinely.
I’m old enough to have been smacked around by a teacher as a kid for writing with my left hand. Right-handed bias is EVERYWHERE. Everywhere. Right-handed people will never notice it until they look for it, and even then it’s hard to see.
So yeah I am sure the ribbing is nothing more than “a sensible chuckle” for right-handed people, us southpaws are not laughing. And if you try to tell me you are, I seriously doubt that you are left-handed.
by naikrovek - Can you elaborate on this “right handed bias”? I can’t think of anything other than a can opener where it might matter?by what
- Yepby tetrisgm
- I am left handed and and it did not bother me at all. Probably because you seem to have faced discrimination and I never have.
- I'm sorry it upset you. I thought it was funny but I'm also younger and I think I escaped most of the dextrocentric bullshit my parents' generation had to deal with. My mom was forced to use her right hand but it was mostly just an inconvenience for me. I like making jokes about being sinister (literally the Latin word for left) but I'd probably feel differently if people smacked me over it.by sapphicsnail
- But you just called yourself a southpaw - what is that, if not self derision?
And anyway, it reads more like making fun out of the almost religious belief that left handed people don't exist held not by the writer but by developers of wordpress.
by gambiting - Reminds me of this old youtube bug where some of the videos that were uploaded ended up upside down because of a phone orientation during recording:
https://bruteforceswimathon.medium.com/youtube-help-my-video...
by incognito124