Marcus Mears III / How-To Geek
Number pads are a holdover from the era of massive desktop calculators. You might be better off without one — at least, one permanently fixed to your keyboard.
You’ve probably seen countless keyboards with integrated number pads, or there might be one on your keyboard right now. They provide a grid layout for quickly entering numbers, which helped make the transition from calculators to desktop computers less painful. Over the years, it has remained a fixture in PC keyboards, even as many people just use the number row.
Why Does My Wrist Hurt?
I’m not saying number pads are bad, or they shouldn’t exist, because they’re obviously useful to many people — especially anyone working in Excel, or playing PC games with custom bindings and macros. However, they do usually come with a trade-off: ergonomics.
There are a few easy ways to make yourself comfortable at a computer and reduce physical strain: sit up straight in a chair, don’t sit too close to the monitor, and keep your hands at or below your elbow level, and so on. As Read Full Article Source
