Handedness

[Tony Williams]

Not sure if this is the right place for it, but I was interested to read some correspondence in New Scientist about right or left handedness in telephone use. In discussing this with my BH, something curious emerged: we are both right-handed, but I have always picked up the handset with my left hand (and therefore listened with my left ear), whereas my BH is the opposite.

Which is more common, and is it to do with handedness or (as one correspondent said) just better hearing in one ear? Using the left hand is logically better for right-handed people, as it leaves the right hand free to operate the phone, make notes etc., but that isn't why I do it - it just comes naturally to me.

Any thoughts?

[chaggle]

I hold the phone with my left hand leaving my favoured right hand free to do other stuff. It's not a conscious thing but it's why I do it. If I pick up with my right hand I soon switch it over to my left.

[Ketchup]

I guess it has something to do with 'right brain / left brain'.

I am right-handed and always pick up the phone with my left hand and put it to my left ear - pen possibly ready in right hand. In fact, my landline, an Easicom 1000 apparatus, must have been made for a right-handed person - with the receiver on the left and the screen and buttons to the right.
And yet, if I need to copy type something (obviously using both hands), the page that I am looking at to copy from has got to be to the left of the computer.

[Tinkerbell]

I am right handed and have to have the phone to my left ear, must be just habit, even though my hearing is better in my right ear....although hearing is getting worse in both - eh?, what?

[DrS]

I'm right handed and had right-ear problems which left me with slightly better hearing (mainly psychologically so) in my left ear. A few months ago I'd have said, therefore, that the reason I held the phone to my left ear was for hearing reasons. But recently, my left side hearing has deteriorated and it's now noticeably better on the right hand side, but even when I'm struggling to hear out of my left ear, I still have to have the phone that side. I don't know whether it's because my right hand is then free to do whatever, or habit, but it's a clear preference, and it's certainly now not connected with better hearing.