Do cell phones cause neck pain?

Welcome back! I have returned to ask you a VERY important question…

What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?

Now, with great cinematic references aside, did you know the answer off the top of your head? Or was your first instinct to pull the smart phone out of your pocket and Google it? Unless you are a Monty Python nerd and your immediate response was, “An African or a European swallow?” odds are you had to look it up.

With the vast array of information and the millions of cat videos available at your fingertips, our society has become reliant on the use of technology. Kids born today do not know of a time without the internet and smart phones, and heck, most grade schoolers already know their way around an iPhone better than me. Countless processes already function heavily on the internet from shopping to scheduling doctor’s appointments, paying bills, and looking up on YouTube how to change a tire. Smart phones are a wonderfully useful tool intended to make our lives easier, but at what cost?

With the age of technological advances also comes the age of technologically related conditions. And today my friends, I’m referring to “text neck.”

What is text neck?

Check out this totally awesome article from ‘The Spine Journal’ titled, “’Text Neck:’ An Epidemic of the Modern Era of Cell Phones?” The article discusses the correlation between the amount of time spent using a smart phone and the likelihood of developing a structural condition of the spine.  Since cell phones are extensively used by people of all ages, physicians are noticing an influx of patients complaining of neck and upper back pain with or without numbness and tingling into the arms and hands, especially among adolescents and teenagers.

What causes text neck?

The average human head weighs about 10-12 lbs, and every inch the head comes forward in front of your shoulders, this adds an extra 10 lbs of pressure through your spine. So that means that if your head is 6 inches in front of your shoulders, that’s 60 lbs of extra pressure on your spine! That’s insane! This accelerates the rate that the spine breaks down and causes young adults to have conditions that are common among the geriatric population.

These conditions can include things like:

• disc herniations and ligamentous contractures    (difficulty turning and bending the neck)
• cervical kyphotic alignment    (the natural curve in the neck is backwards)
• abnormal imaging studies    (unexpected findings on X-rays).

The degree of break down in the neck is directly related to the amount of time spent looking down at a screen. So, in most cases the longer you spend looking down at a screen, the worse shape your neck is in.

How to avoid text neck.

There are 3 simple ways to avoid pain from text neck.

1. Hold your phones up at or near eye level while texting, and text with 2 hands and 2 thumbs to get equal use out of your muscles.
2. Practice proper ergonomic positioning while sitting at a desk and perform neck and upper back stretches every 30 minutes to keep things moving.
3. Visit your chiropractor to monitor for signs of text neck. If you need a recommendation for a chiropractor, I know a good one! 😉

Oh! And BTW, the answer is about 24 miles per hour. See you next time!

Reference article:

Cuéllar, J. M., & Lanman, T. H. (2017). “Text neck”: an epidemic of the modern era of cell phones? The Spine Journal, 17(6), 901–902. doi: 10.1016/j.spinee.2017.03.009