The research study that referenced the bumpy problem was published in February 2018 in the journal Scientific Reports. It focused on a feature known to scientists as the “external occipital protuberance,” a bump on the back of the skull in the middle, just where the neck muscles attach to the head.
It makes for a dramatic headline, but rest assured, occurrences of this EOP were only hypothesized (not proven or documented) to be a result of “sustained aberrant postures associated with the emergence and extensive use of hand-held contemporary technologies, such as smartphones and tablets.”
In short, let me ease your fears — no one is growing actual horns just yet, at least not that we can document in such a dramatic-sounding way.
And while the topic has been sensationalized, at the core of the story lies an important question: Can bad mobile phone habits cause us physical harm? My answer to that is yes.
The problem and the pain
A study about how a person’s posture while texting affects the spine, published in the U.S. National Library of Medicine, said that most people have a tendency to tilt their neck while texting on their phone.
The force to the cervical spine is about 10 to 12 pounds when your head at a “neutral state.” That’s the weight of the average person’s head.
However, that force increases as the neck moves forward at different angles: by about 27 pounds at a 15-degree angle, 40 pounds at a 30-degree angle, 49 pounds at a 45-degree angle and 60 pounds at a 60-degree angle.
Over time, your head shifts forward, with what orthopedic doctors call “forward head carriage,” which can cause excess strain on your upper spine. Without correction, this poor posture, sometimes referred to as “tech neck,” may lead to problems such as headaches, pinched nerves, arthritis, bone spurs and muscular deformation, disc degeneration and nerve complications.
The research study published in Scientific Reports notes that people spend an average of two to four hours a day with their head tilted to read text messages, emails, view social media and other electronic communications, adding up to 700 to 1,400 hours a year of what can accurately be described as heavy lifting. High schoolers spend even more time on their mobile devices, averaging about 5,000 hours in the “tech neck” position each year.
If these statistics persist, people may need spinal care earlier in life.