Right Handed vs Left Handed

Handedness is an attribute of humans defined by their unequal distribution of fine motor skill between the left and right hands. An individual who is more dexterous with the right hand is called right-handed, and one who is more skilled with the left is said to be left-handed. A minority of people are equally skilled with both hands, and are termed ambidextrous. People who demonstrate awkwardness with both hands are said to be ambilevous or ambisinister. Ambisinistrous motor skills or a low level of dexterity may be the result of a debilitating physical condition.

There are 4 types  of handedness, but only 2 of them will be considered here; right-handedness and left-handedness.

In fact, the way we see the world is said to be determined by handedness.

Right-handedness is the most common and about 70-90% of the population are right handed. The right-handed individual is going to be more influenced by the left part of the brain. He is also at an advantage since we are in a mostly right-handed society and many tools are adapted for them such as scissors, knives, keyboards, baseball gloves,etc..  The left hemisphere is associated with analytic thought, logic, rational decisions, language and communication, and science and math. 90% of right-handed people process language in the right hemisphere while only 70% of left-handed does that. Right-handed invidivuals are great speakers and can handle words more easily.

Left side of the brain recognises : words, letters and numbers.

Left-handedness on the other hand is less common with about only 8-15% of the population. Before, left-handedness had negative associations. It was considered to be evil or unlucky. Yet, more and more tools are being developed for left-hander from tracker balls to firearms. Researches proved that left-handed people are more vulnerable to allergies, depression, epilepsy, sleeping disorders,etc.. The left-handed individual is dominated by the right hemisphere of the brain which is associated with creativity, artistic, spatial skills, imagination and holistic skills. However, they seems to have poor spatial skills and are more susceptible to accidents and car crashes. left-hander are known to have problems in learning how to write.

Right part of the brain recognises : faces, places and objects.

There is still an ongoing debate about Left-handedness and Intelligence. It is said that there is a connection with creative genius. In fact many of history’s most creative minds were left-handed. for e.g Leonardo Da Vinci, Beethoven, Newton, Einstein, and even Charlie Chaplin. Also left-hander tend to be more successful than righties. Other researches from Simon Forbes determined that lefties are no more creative than righties. He concluded that each person is creative in his own way as each of us has some unique talents.

This is why there exists many great left-handed mathematicians and many right-handed artists.

As for myself I am left-handed and that gave me the inspiration to write this article.

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