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Scientists think our cell phone dependence is causing “hornlike” bone spurs in our skulls
We’re on the highway to cell.
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It probably doesn’t need to be said that we look at our cell phones a little too often. We’re on Facebook close to 40 minutes a day, apparently, and who knows how much longer than that on IG and/or Twitter.
Depending on which study you read, we touch our phones between 1,000 – 2,500 times a day. Our dependency on our phones is already manipulating our brains and there are honest-to-God articles out there on “How to Avoid Smartphone Hand Pain.”
What I’m saying is, I guess it’s not too farfetched to think that phones could be causing hornlike bone spurs in our skulls, is it?
Not if you’re The Washington Post, it’s not. In a report published Thursday, the Post highlighted a study from a pair of Australian researchers claiming that the repetitive motion of tilting our heads downward may be to blame for a rise in this skull abnormality known as a “head horn” by some.
“You may say it looks like a bird’s beak, a horn, a hook,” said David Shahar, one of the study’s authors.
The evidence, however, is flimsy
Though published in 2018, the study has been picking up steam in light of a recent BBC report on “How modern life is changing the human skeleton.”
READ MORE: No, cell phones don’t give you brain tumors, study finds
Its hypothesis more or less states that the frequency at which we shift our weight from our spine to the muscles in the back of our head causes these spurs, and cites a sample of 1,200 X-rays taken of Queensland subjects aged 18 to 86 in which 33% percent were found to have said spurs.
That said, not everyone’s buying it. Vice, for instance, think the whole cell phone study is being blown out of proportion to cause another moral panic:
…smartphones aren’t the only things that encourage you to have a posture where your head is inclined slightly down and forward. Reading a book, writing, and other activities can also involve having your head in the same position as using a smartphone.
[The researchers] don’t even claim that device use and appendages are correlated. They simply make an educated guess in the discussion section, pointing to a topic for future research.
Regardless of whose side you’re on, I think we can also agree that this pretty much proves my theory that anything newer than the iPhone SE is a tool of the Devil himself.
What do you think? Do you buy this study or is cell phone use being sensationalized? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.
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