‘Text neck’: Let the screen come to you
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Sisters Halle and Hanna Detwiler, sophomores at Connellsville Area High School, take a minute to look at their phones. Dr. Robert Homonai, owner of and chiropractor at Fay-West Chiropractic Health Center in East Huntingdon Township, said he has seen a marked increase in the last 15 years in the number of young people coming in with neck problems and headaches not related to sports injuries or accidents.
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Dr. Homonai
In today’s age of compact electronic devices, it’s not unusual for individuals to lean over their screen rather than lifting the screen up to eye level.
This has created a new group of patients showing up at the chiropractor to help fix or deal with neck pain and headaches, sometimes referred to as “text neck.”
Dr. Robert Homonai, owner of and chiropractor at Fay-West Chiropractic Health Center in East Huntingdon Township, said he has marked increase in the last 15 years in the amount of young people coming in with neck problems and headaches not related sports injuries or accidents.
“It has been a gradual, insidious onset,” he said. “There is just too much availability of the use of technology.”
In “The Physiology of the Joints, volume III” by Dr. Adalbert I. Kapandji, the top 10 detrimental effects of the “forward head posture epidemic” include increased neck pain disability, contributes to carpal Tunnel Syndrome, causes Cervicogenic headaches, causes factors in TMJ Syndrome, creates a higher risk of Osteoporotic fractures and reduces respiratory function.
Homonai said the average person’s head weighs 10 to 12 pounds, which is natural for the body’s musculoskeletal to support.
“But for every inch forward your head goes in front of your shoulders, that adds another 10 pounds of pressure that your neck and upper back needs to support,” he said.
“When this happens, it affects the back of the neck as well as in between the shoulder blades, compressing the discs,” Homonai added. “In the front, it tends to tighten and shorten the muscles there.”
In a study published by commonsensemedia.org, in 2017, 43 percent of all teens who watched online videos or television did so on a smartphone. Seventeen percent of teens who watched online videos or television did so on a tablet and nine percent used their iPod.
Halle Detwiler, a sophomore at Connellsville Area High School, said she is on her phone constantly and admitted that having correct posture has never been something she has even thought about.
“I’m usually sitting on the couch or somewhere comfortable,” she said.
In the same study, focusing on children up to the age of eight, the amount of time a child spends on mobile devices tripled from 2013 to 2017, spending just 15 minutes a day in 2013 to 48 minutes a day in 2017.
Also, 95 percent of families with children up to 8 years of age have smartphones – up from 63 percent in 2013 and 41 percent in 2011.
“In kindergarten my teacher had us hold a book on our head and walk around without it falling off,” Homonai said. “Today, that focus on the importance of good posture isn’t there.”
He added that he feels our society has gotten away from the agrarian culture where kids were outside riding bikes, working on the farm or participating in physical play with others. Even adult jobs have moved from those physical jobs in manufacturing to today when the majority of jobs are clerical or done behind a desk.
“There’s less physical activity and more sitting,” he said. “There’s a saying that has gone around (in chiropractic circles) that sitting is the new smoking.”
If neck issues occur or headaches being, Homonai said chiropractics can help address the muscle issues and help restore the natural forward curve in the neck that gets compromised from slouching and constantly looking down.
Homonai recommends sitting at a table or a desk top, rather than a couch, when engaging with hand-held technological devices.
“And remind your child to bring the screen to their face rather than dropping their head to the screen,” he said.