Repetitive strain injury

Repetitive strain injury (RSI) is an umbrella term for damage to muscles, nerves, and tendons caused by repetitive movements, sustained awkward postures, or forceful exertions. It is not a single diagnosis but a family of disorders — including tendinitis, tenosynovitis, and diffuse pain syndromes — that share a common etiology: the accumulation of microtrauma at rates that exceed the body's capacity for repair. RSI is the defining occupational hazard of the information economy, where the repetitive task is not lifting but typing, and the injured tissue is not the back but the hands and wrists. The condition is notoriously difficult to treat because the only effective cure — cessation of the causative activity — is often economically impossible for affected workers.

RSI connects directly to typing ergonomics and to broader questions about how automation transforms rather than eliminates physical labor. The typist performing millions of keystrokes annually faces the same fundamental problem as the factory worker on an assembly line: the human body is not designed for repetitive precision at industrial scale.