An interesting anecdote that comes to mind is playing old computer games with arrow keys, which used my right hand. I got pretty proficient with this.

Over the years, I (and I imagine many others) switched over to WASD to play newer games with mouse + keyboard, but this meant using the left hand for "arrow keys"

Now I can directly compare how proficient I am with WASD vs Arrow Keys and the result surprised me. I was way worse with arrow keys (right hand) even though back when WASD was becoming a thing I'd rebind WASD to arrow keys because it felt too weird! I would've never imagined back then that WASD could ever feel as natural as arrow keys.

Makes me wonder how much of handedness is truly innate vs learned.

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wincy 33 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

I’m left handed and never understood left handed mice at all. I write with my left and swing and kick left handed, but all gaming stuff has always been the same way anyone else does. I’m pretty sure up down left right switching to wasd is a function of that setup being more comfortable with the mouse to the right of the keyboard, correct?

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xenadu02 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I remember in elementary school being amused by the idea of handedness so I decided to practice writing with my left hand as well. I'm not great at it but even to this day I can write legibly with my left hand from that little bit of practice as a child.

Anyone can get much better at using their non-dominant hand (if they have one) with just a bit of practice. The effect is much much stronger when you do so as a child.

	▲	wincy 30 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I realized at some point as a leftie I could trivially learn to write a mirror image of what everyone else was writing so learned to write backwards. Since the motions are exactly what others do it’s actually easier in a lot of ways for me. Left handed writing is all scrunched up and annoying, and I got constant smudges on my hand. Frixion ink pens are the only pen I’ll buy because they don’t smudge at all. My guess is it’s actually because it’s heat reactive so it just vanishes on skin, but that works for me! (It doesn’t disappear on the page except the time I put a hot bowl of oatmeal on my hand written deployment reminder notes, which was a bit of a surprise. Took me about an hour to recover gathering data, haha).
	▲	kaashif 29 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Children have better neuroplasticity but worse persistence than adults. As an adult I just practiced writing with my left hand loads for basically no reason, it's not that useful, but I still did it for some reason. Now I can write illegibly with either hand :)

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dhosek 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

For this sort of motor skill, it’s definitely learned. For stringed instruments, for example, it’s the left hand which has the more finely managed manipulation than the right (it’s interesting to note that only guitar-family instruments are commonly made in left-handed versions, although some of that may come down to logistics of string ensembles where having one left-handed violin in the violin section would cause a bit of chaos with colliding bows that is less of an issue with guitar ensembles where there are fewer musicians and they’re less tightly packed in the performance space). Likewise, the fingering on woodwind instruments doesn’t really favor one hand over the other. In contrast, brass instruments are decidedly right-handed (I suppose one might be able to manage a trumpet left-handed, but I’ve never tried. I don’t think other brass instruments could be fingered with the left hand at all.

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kelipso 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Something super simple and revealing is try pressing on the brakes with your left foot.

	▲	ahurmazda 3 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		A few of my relatives who grew up on a farm drives that way (right for gas, left for brakes)