In this controlled laboratory study, associations between thumb-based exposures simultaneously registered with electrogoniometers and EMG were investigated during mobile phone texting. Significant group correlations were found when exposure parameter combinations, averaged over the full duration of the texting task, were compared. In addition, correlations were seen in a few of the cross-correlations calculated between the two signals. These two different types of correlations were not strongly associated to one another, i.e. exposure combinations showing strong group correlation were often weakly cross-correlated. This indicates that the group level correlations between EMG and goniometer may have a lower temporal association and may be less directly related to one another than the associations identified by the cross-correlations. Since goniometry measures an external exposure – the angle, while EMG measures an internal exposure – the force, electrogoniometry and EMG provide different aspects of exposure, and as measured in this study, do not generally substitute each other.