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3 DISCUSSION
3.1 Evaluation of Methods
In this study, the population was 15,000 working-
age Finns. The amount of responses was 6,121,
which was quite large. Therefore, it was possible to
make analyses on the subgroup of people, such as
based on age groups. However, the results of our
data are not highly reliable, because the nonresponse
rate was over 50%.
In the questionnaire, the new technical units
included desktop computers, portable computers,
hand-held computers, communicators, Internet,
mobile phones, electronic marketplaces/commerce,
teletext, digital television and associated services. In
some of age groups, people might not use all these
services or equipment.
This data is about 10 years old, which is a long time
in consumer technology. For example, the digi-TV
and digibox were new when we sent the
questionnaire, but nowadays the devices are well
known, so the situation has changed. However, the
desktop computers used in 2002 were quite similar
to those used nowadays. The usage of the Internet
has increased, so perhaps the amount of usage of the
Internet is nowadays higher than in 2002.
3.2 Use of Computers and Reported
Symptoms
In all data, 45% of all participants used a computer
at work on a daily basis and 31% at leisure. The
daily use of desktop computers at work is quite
popular (over 60%) in the age groups 31–40, 41–50,
and 51–60. In these same age groups, a similar
percentage of the respondents (less than a 7.5%
difference) reported physical symptoms in the neck
as ‘very often’.
4 CONCLUSIONS
The daily use of desktop computers of all
participants was about 45% at work and about 30%
at leisure in all the data. In addition, about 5%
reported physical symptoms in the neck very often
in the age groups 31–40, 41–50, and 51–60. In the
future, it is important to take into account ergonomic
issues and the ergonomic differences of mobile
devices, e.g., computers can stress a person’s neck.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The assistance of the staff (Noomi Suuronen, Jari
Latva-Teikari and Riitta Lehtelä) of Environmental
Health group, Tampere University of Technology
was gratefully acknowledged.
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