LEFT, LEFT, LEFT, RIGHT? No, we are not avoiding a turn today. Rather, we are celebrating all the southpaws out there! Happy Lefthanders Day!

Did you know that according to a study in Scientific Reports, only 10% of the population is left handed? The study also stated that “data showed that left-handedness was very weakly heritable,” which means that being a lefty didn’t necessarily come from your parents as was once thought.

The Illinois Research Consortium conducted experiments as part of a psychology study and found that left handed people are better at multitasking, sort of. “When given two tasks to simultaneously complete, left-handers outperformed right-handers. However, when instructed to focus on one task at a time, right-handers completed the tasks more quickly, compared to left-handers,” per the experiment.

Another interesting finding of this study, “Episodic memory, the recall and recognition of events, uses different areas of the brain than non-episodic memory (used in factual and implicit memory). Left-handers showed better episodic than non-episodic memory. This finding was reversed in right-handers.”

Unfortunately, many southpaws have a hard time in this right handed world. The daily tools are not made for lefties. Think scissors, rulers, spiral and spined notebooks, manual can openers, and so many other items. There is an industry out there working to offer items made for lefties, though.

We wonder if there will ever be a group, company, or organization dedicated to making all their products geared toward an ambidextrous world — wouldn’t that solve everything? Why keep the divide going in one more group?

Lefties and righties unite, let’s put our brains together and tackle at least one problem!