Your Smartphone Addiction Could Be Causing Serious Spine Damage
As if we needed another reason to wean off of our smartphone addiction… turns out the pressure we’re putting on our spines when we’re looking down at our phones is equal to the gravitational pull of a 60-pound bowling ball. With each degree the angle of your neck increases, the more pressure you’re putting on your spine, and the results are not great.
We’ve known for a while that the strain of looking down at a phone puts extra pressure on your neck, but Dr. Kenneth Hansraj brought the facts and figures to light. Given that an average human head weighs 10-12 pounds, when you’re hanging it down to stare at your phone, your spine is bearing the brunt of pressure. Hansraj says that the long-term consequences could be “early wear, tear, degeneration and possibly surgeries.”
The not-so medical-sounding name for this type of strain is “Text Neck.” To give you a little perspective, The Atlantic equates it to “giving an aardvark a piggy-back ride.” We’re guessing that feels pretty bad.
We’re always giving you tips on great apps and cases to improve your smartphone life, and that doesn’t have to stop here. The key is to hold your phone straight in front of you so you’re no longer putting pressure on your neck just to look down at Instagram.
What do you do to prevent Text Neck? Let us know in the comments!
(h/tThe Atlantic)