Smart Phones and Stroke, Part 1

Rebecca Dutton
Home After a Stroke

May 26, 2015

Part 1 is about how a stroke limits what I can do with a smart phone and how I feel about it.

I do not have to worry about falling while staring at my smart phone as I walk. My one good hand is busy controlling the cane I walk with due to my poor balance.


My sitting balance is not as good this guy on the boat. I do not have to worry about missing a whale because I cannot stop staring at my smart phone.

I use my one good hand to hold the spinner knob that controls the steering wheel. Letting go of the spinner knob to use my phone would be a new definition of hands-free driving.

I can use my smart phone to ignore people. However, after my stroke visiting with others is such a treat that I have never done it. Years ago I read a science fiction book about a time when people interacted only as 3-D holograms. Anyone who craved face-to-face human contact was considered mentally ill.  I remember thinking I would be dead before technology made this future happen. Then I saw eight twenty-somethings playing with their smart phones after they finished eating in a restaurant. The zone of silence was eerie.

I am still learning how to take photos with my smart phone. The touch screen is so sensitive that the phone takes seven copies of the same picture before I can take my thumb off the button. My four other fingers struggle to cradle the phone. I am learning to put less pressure on the screen and remove my thumb more quickly, but I still love my camera that is perfect for a stroke survivor.

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Smart Phones and Stroke, Part 1

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