According to the Daily Mail, “tech neck” –phone induced neck wrinkles–is latest complaint among smartphone addicts.
Disrupted sleep, interrupted sex, lack of focus–these are some of the downsides of your smartphone addiction. They’re with us all day long, constantly beckoning us. The moment we don’t have anything do, we text or check Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and our emails. We’ve forgotten how to be uncomfortable in social situations because we’re so used to turning to our smartphones for camaraderie. But what if these little gadgets gave us neck wrinkles?
All that gazing down at our smartphones, tablets or laptops is giving us “tech neck”. I’ll be honest, I just took a look in the mirror to see whether I was plagued with new wrinkles circling my neck, the result of looking downward for far too long each day.
“Tech neck,” neck wrinkles caused by our compulsion to stare at our favorite gadgets, is the modern version of laugh lines, except it’s manmade. There’s even a treatment called the Microlift to combat the new wrinkle phenomenon. Dean Nathanson, Managing Director of CACI international, experts in non-surgical facelifts, commented on The Daily Mail:
We’re a hard working nation and our hectic everyday lives mean that keeping one’s head down, be it buried in work emails or in an e-reader, is completely the norm. Recently we noticed a surge in enquiries for our product, specifically to combat lines around the neck area.
Our bodies are just not designed to be in the same position for such long periods of time. This isn’t the first result of our gadget addiction. Digital eye strain is another issue. In all, 70 percent of adults report digital eye strain, a set of symptoms that can include dry eyes, blurry vision, fatigue, and neck and shoulder cramping–all the result of staring at computer screens all day. And then there’s the other smartphone health hazard: texting while walking. A 2013 Ohio State University study found that more than 1,500 people were treated in emergency rooms for cell phone related injuries. (We won’t even mention the hazards of texting while driving.)
Yikes! It’s all the more reason to give your gadgets (and your body) a break. Friends, step away from your smartphones.
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Image: Kamyar Adl