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Man ruptures thumb tendon playing Candy Crush one-handed

Technically Incorrect: A man says that he played all day for six to eight weeks and noticed a slight pain in his left hand. But not when he played.

Chris Matyszczyk
2 min read

Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives.


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Some of the magic may be painful. Candy Crush/YouTube screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET

I have several otherwise intelligent friends who spend hours watching bits of fruit and candy roll down a screen.

I have asked them what pleasure they gain from this and they mutter, when they're able to speak, that it's the challenge. Or the relaxation. Or the fact that they are, in fact, demented.

Perhaps the tale of a man whose thumb tendon ruptured from too much Candy Crush might change their minds, but I doubt it.

Live Science tells me the 29-year-old man is from California, but this is surely no excuse. He apparently felt pain in his left thumb. He realized that he played Candy Crush all day for 6 to 8 weeks and that the left hand that was experiencing pain was the very left hand with which he played.

Yes, he's a one-handed player, choosing to use the other hand to perform more essential tasks. Scraping wax from his ear, perhaps.

The curious thing, however, was that the man felt no pain when he played. This offers an alarm all of its own. Imagine that a game can be not only mind-numbing, but body-numbing too. With all the discomfort people feel in their lives, could Candy Crush be the ultimate panacea?

Still, when they examined him, doctors found that his thumb tendon was ruptured. Isn't that normally an NFL injury? What was extraordinary in this man's thumb was that the tendon had ruptured not at its thinnest point, but at its thickest.

Live Science quoted Dr. Andrew Doan, the head of addictions research at the Naval Medical Center, San Diego who co-authored this playful case. He said: "We need to be aware that certain video games can act like digital painkillers."

I have contacted King, the company behind Candy Crush, to ask whether it has comment and might even offer health guidelines to those at risk. I will update, should I hear.

The 29-year-old was not deemed to be an addict. He was merely constantly passing the time by playing.

Perhaps he was just unlucky. Perhaps his particular playing technique put constant stress on the perfectly wrong part of his body.

Perhaps, though, every time you want to play one of these games and it's the seventh time this week, you might want to stop and simply walk away.

Just imagine the fun that might then occur. The sanity, too.