Text Neck Was Never a Real Epidemic
Have you been overwhelmed by a devastating epidemic, first identified less than a decade ago, when people flexed their necks to look at their phones? Then you had the “text neck” – a disease that almost certainly never existed.
But it was fun to be angry about it. Phones! Destroying our health! Of course have! News articles about the disease indicated numbers representing smartphone or cell phone use, rather than the actual number of people with an inscription on their necks. The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle took this point to an end by pointing out that 8-18 year olds spend seven and a half hours a day using entertainment media . NBC News indicated that in December 2008, Americans sent 110 billion text messages . The Washington Post wrote that the text jumper poses a risk for 58 percent of American adults … because that’s the number of people who own smartphones.
So where did the “text neck” come from? Florida chiropractor Dean Fishman coined the term in 2009 and founded the Text Neck Institute to treat the condition. He has spoken in the media about him, a lot, which may only have had the side effect of bringing in business.
Fishman told CNN that he diagnosed his first case of text neck in a 17-year-old who had neck pain because he noticed the teen was using a smartphone during the visit. He later said that 90 percent of his patients came to him complaining of a text neck . It may be true – it makes sense that the Text Neck Institute attracts people who write messages and suffer from neck pain – but this is hardly evidence of an epidemic.
In 2014, the term gained traction with a study that calculated the stress you put on your neck by bending it forward . Your ten pound head applies 60 pounds of force to your neck when you lower it at a 60 degree angle, and that sounds bad. What angle do people usually write from? Are you getting any symptoms or is your neck just getting stronger? The study did not address these issues. It was a computer analysis of an imaginary skeleton. It’s all. (Here is a skeptical view published at the time.)
Now that nearly a decade of terror reigning on the text neck has passed, we have the results of a study in which we tried to find out if the text neck really exists. Brazilian researchers compared text messages and complaints of neck pain among 150 students aged 18 to 21 and found no correlation . In response, one spine specialist told the Daily Mail, “Text messaging is not an epidemic, it’s not even a problem.”