For someone that thrives in chaos I hate change. Once I have a workflow for an application or device I dig in hard. Part of this is because I have shockingly poor user experience intuition. It takes me longer than average to learn to use even the most simple applications. But part of it is how I learn. I dive in deep to master a new skill and then jealousy horde the knowledge out of fear that someone will change a design or form factor to the point where my muscle memory cannot be relied upon. That would mean a complete reset of my capabilities requiring a day of learning. That’s mental overhead and the stress of doing my work poorly while I learn. I bring this all up being I got a new phone.
My old one was getting sluggish and my husband loves buying gadgets so a new one appeared after I had merely whispered that my old device may not be long for this world. The new one is sleek and fast and lovely but it’s significantly bigger than its predecessor.
And even an inch requires me to completely relearn muscle memory for how to hold the phone, how fast I can type, and where the apps do or do not bleed out the edge. I kid you not when I say two days into using it I’ve already developed a callus on my pinky from holding it up vertically while thumb typing. I hope my pinky hardens over fast as damn this phone is heavy.
This frustrates me as I spend my day on my phone and have a significant amount of my workflow baked into mobile apps (I’m writing this in WordPress’s excellent iOS mobile app) as my spine gives me trouble if I spend all day in even the nicest office chair. So I type a lot while lying down with the phone over my face. You can see how I might get a pressure callus from this nonsense now as the grip I’ve developed relies heavily on the right pinky to hold up the device. This worked well on a lighter shorter device. Not so much here.
I know I’ll adjust in a few days but the minor irritation that comes from having a workflow be disrupted has its cascade effects. It does just enough to knock you off kilter that it can sour a mood or inhibit creativity. I’m sure there are lessons in here for how app onboarding and product sales can be managed to ease stress or buy in for consumers. But for me it’s probably just a minor callus and an extra Ativan. And a bit of writers block as I get frustrated with just how uncomfortable my hands feel with something new.