To Your Spine, Texting Is Like Hanging a 60-Pound Bowling Ball From Your Head

Looking down at your phone to read text messages puts a stress on your neck equivalent to tying a 60-pound bowling ball around your head, says Kenneth Hansraj, a New York back surgeon. The good doctor found this number by looking at computer models of how gravity affects the human spine, using equations that assumed the average weight of the human head to be twelve pounds.

“As the head tilts forward the forces seen by the neck surges to 27 pounds at 15 degrees, 40 pounds at 30 degrees, 49 pounds at 45 degrees and 60 pounds at 60 degrees,” Hansraj said.

The calculation was recently published in the journal Surgical Technology International and Hanraj recommends training yourself to lift your phone up if you want to check email, Facebook, Instagram, Google, Snapchat, etc.

According to Nielsen, the average American spends about an hour on their smartphone each day.

To save your spine and to better serve yourself, you may be ahead to set the phone down for a little while. As technology writer William Powers said in his Big Think interview, the way we currently use connective devices probably doesn’t optimize the technology: