Smartphones have become a consistent part of daily life, but texting and looking down at all hours of the day may be causing an epidemic of neck and spine problems.

“This is a cause for real concern,” said Nicole Lynk, a chiropractor and master’s student in the David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics. Lynk said she believes the word epidemic is a suitable term for a condition like this.

Text neck is the angle in which you hold your head as you look at your phone. A human head alone weighs about a dozen pounds, and the more it bends forward and down, the more it weighs. New research, which will come out this month, says “text neck” is becoming an epidemic. This can create “stress on the body, which can lead to cervical spinal degeneration,” according to the Text Neck Institute.

The average person spends two to four hours on their devices, which increases the chances of having problems, said Dean Fishman, a chiropractor and founder of Text Neck Institute.

“Text neck is an epidemic because we are seeing an increase of patients who are younger coming in for treatment and advice for ailments which would have been considered unusual for that age group, many years ago,” Fishman said.

Fishman said that since this is quite unusual for a younger generation to come in with chronic headaches and back pain, “we are seeing an earlier onset of arthritic presentations.”

People of all ages enjoy the luxury of instant communication, with over 4 billion people phone-connected worldwide, he said.

“Children are developing bad posture habits at earlier ages by playing with these tablets and iPhones, which has the potential to become a real problem by the time they reach the age of 25,” Lynk said.

But many high school and college students don’t think text neck is a serious health problem.

“I think looking at all technology problems collectively is an epidemic but singling out text neck itself as an epidemic is hard to say because there are so many other factors that affect posture,” said Komal Safdar, a senior biochemistry at Syracuse University.

Safdar said she does not expect this epidemic to scare the younger generation into changing their habits. “There is a natural tendency for a younger student to feel invincible,” but “it’s not until early adulthood you start caring about this sort of stuff.”

Poor posture is caused by many factors and is therefore not an alarming concern, but over time, “repetitive motion problems will cause damage,” Lynk said.

Lisa Olson-Gugerty, a professor in the department of public health, food studies and nutrition, said she does not think this epidemic is alarming, but “it’s just a reminder to have good posture and that the digital era is affecting us in many areas of our life, including physical health.”

Most of the general population isn’t educated about text neck, and there is not enough valid long-term research to truly call it an epidemic, Safdar said. But what is known is that consistently curving your neck down to look at a phone causes bad posture, and bad posture causes spinal cord issues and back pain.

Fishman recommended specific exercises and stretches in order to “strengthen the muscles from behind the neck, which run down in between the shoulder blades.”

There are mixed reactions as to the seriousness of this epidemic by students and health officials. But in the long term, research will help provide more information to youth.

Said Lynk: “This is a whole new game and we just don’t have enough evidence yet, we only know that it isn’t going to be good.”

Published on December 3, 2014 at 12:01 am