Modern people can no longer imagine their life without a smartphone, tablet or laptop – with the help of these devices we get new information, read books, listen to music, communicate with friends, pay bills, make purchases and much more. On everage we spend in an online environment from 2 to 5 hours a day, and freelancers (people working online) spend from 10 to 12 hours.
These figures are terrifying, especially considering the position of our neck – we have received a generation of people “with their heads down”. People manage to send messages while driving a car or walking down the street, they communicate in social networks and read news sitting in the subway or standing in a line.
For some reason, the manufacturers of smartphones do not indicate the harm caused by such a long head tilting. And the latest medical research is rather disappointing – the load experienced by our neck can reach 27 kg! See for yourself: the human head weighs about 5 kg. But when we tilt our head, the load on the cervical spine increases — at an angle of 15 degrees this weight reaches 12 kg, at 30 degrees — 18 kg, when the head is tilted 25 degrees, weight increases to 22 kg, and by 60 degrees its weight equals 27 kg! Imagine that a child experiences such load for 3-4 hours daily (approximately as many hours children spend in the Internet playing games).
This figure ranges from 400 to 1500 hours per year, and for some high school students it reaches 5,000 hours! That is how many hours they spend in a bent position. Of course, this can not pass without a trace for a human body, and sooner or later people complain of headaches, dizziness, fatigue, blurred vision, ophtalmalgia and cervical pain, sleep disorder, and depression.
This posture also affects the state of cervical spine – nerves are pinched, dystrophic processes and inflammation occur, and this can even change the natural curve of the neck. Of course, it is impossible to avoid technology, but people should make every effort to reduce the cervical spine load and try to spend less time hunched over a smartphone.
Try to look at the device with your eyes bent on the ground and without bending the neck. Raise the tablet a bit higher in case you feel uncomfortable. It is desirable that it was at eye level. Every 30-40 minutes try to do exercises for the cervical spine, try to avoid your muscles numb. And, of course, try to minimize your “communication” with a smartphone and tablet – communicate with real people.
