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Ever Wonder How Many Calories You Burn with a Mouse Click?

If you’ve ever wondered just how much of a workout you’re getting at the office everyday by simply clicking your mouse, wonder no more. Someone has calculated it and put it in a publicatio...
Ever Wonder How Many Calories You Burn with a Mouse Click?
Written by Josh Wolford
  • If you’ve ever wondered just how much of a workout you’re getting at the office everyday by simply clicking your mouse, wonder no more. Someone has calculated it and put it in a publication.

    The findings appeared in the recently published Convert Anything to Calories, which calculated the calorie counts in both food and common activities.

    The calculation was based on an average human finger volume and weight of 10.8 cubic centimeters and 11.7 grams, respectively.

    On average, 16.7 micromoles of ATP (Adenosine triphosphate) are consumed in moving one gram of muscle for one second. So, the total amount of ATP burned to move 11.7 grams of muscle in the index finger is approximately 195 micromoles (11.7g×16.7μ mol/g). There are 7.3 calories in one mole of ATP energy, so the number of calories burned in clicking the mouse equals about 1.42 (7.3/1000) X 195).

    So, 1.42 calories every time you click that YouTube video link or send out that tweet. Well, kind of.

    “The calculation assumes the muscle contracted completely, so the actual amount of calories used is a little less,” the authors specify. So, unless you’re really clicking your mouse with gusto, you’re probably not burning the full 1.42 calories per click.

    So, long story short, you should probably get up and take a stroll around the office. Browsing reddit isn’t going to burn off that Quarter Pounder w/ cheese.

    [Yahoo Japan via RocketNews24 via TechCrunch]

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