Long-term smartphone use, especially among young people, causes posture disorders over time. Stating that the phone should be used at eye level, Dr. Head of the Department of Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation at the Faculty of Health Sciences of a private university. Lecturer Özlem Akkoyun Sert stated that otherwise young people may face the pocket neck problem called ‘text neck’.
“IT MAY CAUSE SPINAL PROBLEMS IN YOUNG PEOPLE”
Stating that the biggest problem among young people is ‘text neck’, Dr. Lecturer Özlem Akkoyun Sert said, “One of the biggest problems in young people today is a neck problem that we call text neck. This is the forward movement of young people’s heads due to mobile phone use. This movement can cause spine problems in young people.
There may be posture disorders in their spine. For example, one of them is the hunched posture. It’s a problem that parents complain about a lot and tell them to stay upright. After slouching, the head comes forward. The most important reason for this is the use of smartphones among young people. They are currently talking about a problem we call pocket neck in medicine. This can cause many problems.
Problems such as extreme fatigue, pain, restriction in movements, positional disorders in the spine, hunched posture, and excessive forward movement of the shoulders occur. “Young people can talk about extreme pain and extreme fatigue even while studying,” he said.
DO A DIGITAL DETOX
Stating that they recommend digital detox to young people in order to avoid any problems, Özlem Akkoyun Sert said, “We recommend a little digital detox to avoid these problems. When we say this, young people may say things like ‘we are leaving this behind’.
We can exercise at regular intervals, we can add exercise two or three times a day when we are in the same position. There is a very simple thing: holding the phone at eye level rather than down can prevent our neck and head from moving too far forward.
“Holding the phone with both hands instead of one hand or placing it on the table, that is, the important thing is that the mobile phone is at eye level, can eliminate the phenomenon we call pocket neck,” he said.
(UAV)