Fact Check

Fingertips Damaged from Computer Use?

Rumor: Photograph shows fingers damaged from too much mouse and keyboard use.

Published June 26, 2007

Claim:

Claim:   Photograph shows fingers damaged from too much mouse and keyboard use.


FALSE


Example:   [Collected via e-mail, January 2007]


A friend of mine saw this pic and wanted to know if it was true. It is supposedly a picture of someone's hand with marks on his/her fingertips from using the mouse and keyboard too much. The name of the file is "I think I've been spending too much time on the Internet."



Click to enlarge

 

Origins:   According to numerous inquiries about this image we've received from readers, the above-displayed photograph has generated queasy feelings in quite a few viewers. They can take comfort in knowing this image not only doesn't depict a finger condition resulting from too much mouse and keyboard use, it isn't even real.

Like the infamous "breast rash" image, this picture melds a human body part with something else found in nature (but not in humans), producing a bizarre and unsettling result. In this case the human body parts involved are fingers, and the natural objects grafted onto them are pictures of the mouths of lampreys (a jawless fish with a toothed, funnel-like sucking mouth):



Click to enlarge

Last updated:   1 February 2015

David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994.