Unfortunately, nowadays we are seeing a lot of people who are getting addicted to their smartphones. Not only adults but also children, they spend many hours either texting, surfing the net or playing games. Doing this for a long period of time and over the years, they might get a new condition called text neck or smartphone neck pain. So, let me go over this new condition.
Normally, the weight of the head is the key factor for this condition. In general, the function of the muscles, tendons, and the ligaments in the neck are meant to support the head’s weight which is on an average of 5 kg in the neutral position of the head when looking straight forward.
So, when you are using a smartphone, it is common to bend the neck and look down at a 45-to-60-degree angle, which can place about
20 to 25 kg of force on the neck. This extra weight is heavy, and the neck is not able to support this amount of weight over a prolonged period.
Smartphone neck pain happens from overuse or misuse of your neck from the repetitive stress injury to the neck, caused by prolonged use of mobile with the neck bent down, which can cause sprain or spasm to the muscles and the ligaments in the area.
In some cases, excessive bending the head down for years may cause wear and tear damages in the cervical spine like herniated disc or arthritis.
What are the symptoms? Normally you can get pain and stiffness in the neck area or the shoulders which can get worse on bending the neck. others might experience headache in
The back due to muscle spasm.
It is really very important to educate parents and their children about this new addicting condition and its danger in the long term. They need to minimize time using these devices as well as using the correct posture which is that the screens must be at eye level and looking forward and not bending the neck down with an angle
Special thanks for Dr Kasem AL Shunnar, Consultant Neurosurgery for his great efforts and help in creating this video
Video shot by Galia Helbaoui and edited by Amer Helbaoui
7 сен 2022