And finally…millennials losing their grip

Long seen as an important part of business meetings, deal making and job interviews, a new study published by the Journal of Hand Therapy, has revealed that the handshake of men and women under 30 is now weaker than it was in 1985.

The researchers asked 237 male and female volunteers to squeeze a hand dynamometer — joy-stick type-things - and found men aged 20-24 had average hand grips of 101 pounds with their right hand, and 99 pounds with their left.

Those results are measly compared to 1985 when the same age group could grip 121 and 105 pounds — losses of 20 pounds and 6 pounds respectively.

The study also found that men aged 25-29 were able to grip 26 and 19 pounds less than was the case for men the same age 30 years ago.

Women ages 20-24 showed smaller, but significant losses in their right hand grip. With right-handed grips today of 60 pounds, they’ve lost roughly 10 pounds of force.

The only group where this was not the case and hand strength did not show significant changes were women aged 30-34.

The researchers suggest that this change could be caused by a reliance on technology, and the fact that fewer people work in manual labour in which they must really use their hands.

“Work patterns have changed dramatically since 1985, when the first norms were established,” said lead author Elizabeth Fain of Winston-Salem State University. “As a society, we’re no longer agricultural or manufacturing … What we’re doing more now is technology-related, especially for millennials.”

A University of Iowa study in 2008 showed that those who score highly with handshake raters are also considered to be the most likely to be hired by job interviewers.