Texting does crazy things to your spine

According to a new study, looking down at a cell phone is equivalent to placing a 60 pound weight on your neck. With the prevalence and addiction to texting growing, will we end up reverting in evolution, as shown in the above image?

The Atlantic compares sixty pounds to the weight of four, adult-sized bowling balls or an eight-year-old child. The new calculation that has been published in Surgical Technology International, showed the amount of sheer force exerted on the head of an adult, looking down at his or her phone. 

According to Kenneth Hansraq, a back surgeon in New York, an average human head weighs around 10 to 12 pounds.  Tilting that head down to send a text, or check your Facebook or Twitter accounts, increases the gravitational pull on the cranium. He writes, "As the head tilts forward the forces seen by the neck surges to 27 pounds at 15 degrees, 40 pounds at 30 degrees, 49 pounds at 45 degrees and 60 pounds at 60 degrees."

Apparently the average American spends around an hour on their smartphone each day, and that is probably the case pretty much all over the more technically advanced world.  Sometimes worse in some countries like Spain (see below). According to Hansraq, unless people train themselves to stare ahead at their iPhone screen, they could be continually stressing the spine.

"These stresses," Hansraj writes, "may lead to early wear, tear, degeneration, and possibly surgeries."

This sort of thing is not unheard of in Europe, albeit affecting the wrists, rather than the spine.  Back in July, a market research company, Ipsos MORI said that Spain was the leading tech-addicted country in Europe with the average Spaniard spending around eight hours per day on their iPhones.

The excessive use of texting in Spain actually led to the first case of what has been dubbed "WhatsAppitis."  According to the report,  a pregnant woman in Granada, Spain visited a hospital suffering from painful wrists after overusing the WhatsApp phone messaging service.

Inés M. Fernandez-Guerrero of the General University Hospital in Granada reported:  "A 34-year-old emergency medicine physician, 27 weeks pregnant, presented with bilateral wrist pain with sudden onset upon waking up one morning. She had no history of trauma and had not engaged in any excessive physical activity in the previous days."

Fernandez-Guerrero continued, "The patient ... responded to messages that had been sent to her on her smartphone via WhatsApp instant messaging service. She held her mobile phone, that weighed 130g, for at least 6h. During this time she made continuous movements with both thumbs to send messages," adding, "The diagnosis for the bilateral wrist pain was ‘WhatsAppitis.’ The treatment consisted of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and complete abstinence from using the phone to send messages."

So there we go.  Be warned.  Try to either cut down on your texting or maybe try to hold the phone up in front of your eyes while doing so.  You might look a bit funny, but it could be worth it in the end.
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Top image compilation, apologies the Smithsonian and to Surgical Technology
Photo of bored dog with texting man, copyright Anne Sewell, The Media Waves