Netbook Posture

by  on  in In General

This Christmas I gave my niece a netbook1 and talked to her about how to care for it and online safety and stuff. What I forgot to mentioned was how to sit while using one. I’d completely forgotten about this post on GottaBeMobile about these 9 bad netbook postures. In fact, I think we were both doing that first one while chilling on the sofa and watching Animaniacs2. I’m a bad example, just like always.

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I wish this study came with 9 good postures for using netbooks, as it would be helpful to know.

  1. Just as I did last year. I already told her this one had to last for two years… [↩]
  2. did you know that all the episodes are on DVD now? I about died. [↩]
  • Delia

    So what’s wrong with # 5? Her back is straight, her wrists aren’t ridiculously low. You’re right, I want Good Laptop posture pictures, not just more reasons to feel self-conscious about how I’m sitting while I work.

  • Cairsten

    The trouble with #5 is that she’s got to keep her head bent to see the screen and her hands are both unsupported at the wrists and angled upward from the wrists. The palm of her hand is on the keyboard, but her wrists aren’t. Angle is the main problem with all of these postures; you want a position that lets you look straight ahead (not downward) and support at your wrists so that your hand, wrist, and forearm make a straight line and you can move just your fingers for typing. A rolled-up towel under her wrists might be able to salvage that part of it, though it won’t do a thing for the neck being bent.

  • I wouldn’t mind a list of good postures either, as that looks like the complete selection of how I work at my macbook.

  • Jonquil

    If I can’t Netbook in bed, it’s not my revolution.

    • V.

      I think the problem here, and the reason for the negative slant with no positive suggestions, might be that there *are* no really good ways to sit while using a Netbook. They’re simply too small. If it’s positioned so your wrists are supperted and your arms aren’t unreasonably high, the screen is going to be so low that you slump and/or bend your neck to see it. Putting the screen level with your eyes would do absolutely ridiculous things to you arms. This is probably the case for all laptops, where the screen can’t be separated and put on a different level from the keyboard, but it’s especially true for tiny netbooks.

      This from a professional massage therapist whose main machine for the last year has been a Netbook. Sometimes when there’s no good way to do something, you just do it anyway…