Is Overusing Your Smartphone Really Deforming Your Little Finger?

Earlier in March, NTT Docomo, Japan's largest mobile service provider, posted a photo on their Twitter account warning users about a potential finger deformity known as "smartphone pinky".

Docomo did not provide any links to a medical source nor any information about the origins of the hand photo shown here:

Still, the warning quickly went viral, and soon Twitter users were posting photos of their own "smartphone pinky" deformities:

And on Facebook, it has been shared for over 165k times:

As previously reported by Snopes, while it's possible that some smartphone users have experienced pain in their little finger from overusing their devices, it's highly unlikely that holding a smartphone could result in the creation of such a dent in the pinky.

Pain experienced from smartphone overuse is referred to as Repetitive Strain Injury and has been used to describe technology-related traumas such as "BlackBerry thumb" and "Nintendinitis".

So then what explains the so-called "smartphone pinky"?

According to a Palaeolithic archaeologist and Ph.D. researcher from Kent University, we humans have been using our little finger to hold stuff since long before the invention of smartphones. He said that the "smartphone grip is quite similar to when you hold a small stone core or hand-axe, so it's essentially doing the same job."

So where are all the photos of "smartphone pinky" coming from?

As Snopes points out, the most likely answer is that these photos do not show finger deformities caused by holding smartphones.

Instead these photos likely depict a condition known as Clinodactyly, identified by a slight curvature of the fingers. This condition often goes undiagnosed since only severe cases interfere with normal function.

Meanwhile: