At 32 years of age, Willard is a promising consultant for the Boston-based Monitor Company, where he specializes in Internet-related industries. Shortly after he began using his PDA in the fall of 1998, the analyst discovered he was having increasing difficulty taking notes in meetings. Says Willard, "I would pick up the pen, start writing, and nothing but doodles would come out -- it was scary."

After visiting a number of specialists, including at least three different neurologists, he was referred to Dr. Katia Miezkowsky, a neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore. The Russian-born Miezkowsky is only one of a handful of researchers in the world investigating the connection between handheld computing devices and cognitive dysfunction. When Miezkowsky examined Willard, she diagnosed his "handwriter's block" as an acute form of neuromuscular failure stemming from his use of a personal digital assistant.

"We're starting to see more and more otherwise healthy professionals complaining about their motor skills," says Miezkowsky, "and in almost all cases it's a result of straining the brain's ability to adjust muscle memory while using miniaturized, stylus-based computing devices."

It's what the medical community has begun to refer to as "PDA-Induced Paralysis," or PIP. In most of the nearly 200 cases of PIP reported to date, subjects lose the ability to write by hand in varying degrees after mastering the peculiar writing style often required to operate handheld computing devices. For Willard, the culprit was the PalmPilot, from 3COM, the most popular such device on the market today.

In an age when secretaries are called "administrative assistants" and the word "mobile" refers to a communications product more often than it does to a career, the PDA has become the high-tech tool de rigueur. Salespeople use the lightweight electronic gadgets to store contacts, consultants employ them to schedule meetings and read e-mails, and mostly everyone else has found them useful for an occasional round of solitaire.

According to International Data Corp., 7.4 million handheld computers were sold worldwide in 1998. The Farmingham, Mass., research company estimates that more than 10.7 million of the silicon-bound planners will be sold in 1999. The PDA's success is due in large part to its small size, with most models designed to fit inside the pocket of a men's dress shirt. But its size and portability preclude the use of a keyboard in most situations. While it is possible to download data into a PDA via a personal computer, most users rely on a small plastic stylus to access and enter information.

The stylus or pen tool that comes standard on the PalmPilot allows the user to write comments onto a small, two-by-three-inch LCD screen. Unable to run software powerful enough to recognize everyone's handwriting, the tiny computer will only accept entries made in its own alphanumeric code. For example, the letter "k" closely resembles the less-than symbol. Moreover, users must draw these characters one atop another, in a virtual stack, rather than writing them from left to right. Researchers like Miezkowsky blame this unusual approach to writing as the most likely cause of PIP.

"By the time our signature stabilizes," explains Miezkowsky, "so does our personality. Hence, a change in signature often signals a major shift in personality. With PIP, it's not a signature change but a radical departure from one's individual style of writing, and this alteration can lead to big, big problems." Chief among the PIP-related disorders is the eerie onset of an inability to write despite the absence of any physiological failure.

Fortunately for Willard and others apparently suffering from PIP, the symptoms may be reversible. After disposing of his PalmPilot, Willard began an intensive course of therapy that includes several hours of handwriting exercises every day. After a few months, he is once again able to jot down addresses and names on paper, but says he still has a hard time writing entire paragraphs.

"Actually," notes an upbeat Willard, "I do a lot of typing, but at least now I don't have anxiety attacks about signing the check on a dinner date."

The South to the Future World Wide Wire Service is a weekly feed of technology and media news commentary and satire published by the San Francisco Bay Guardian. Quotations attributed to public figures who are satirized are often true, but sometimes invented. Some fictional statements may, in fact, be true. Any other use of real names is accidental and coincidental.