If adults are suffering from neck problems after only a few years of texting and cell phoning, imagine what's in store for our kids, who may start having physical problems much younger than we are.
Daniel Vasquez's Sun-Sentinel story Monday on "text neck," the upper-body problems that come from mobile devices and poor posture, hit home for me. My kids slump at the computer, hang their necks as they look down on their cellphones and tilt their heads to the side as they hold the phone between their neck and their ear as they type.
I tell them to sit up straight, use a headset or speakerphone, etc., etc., and they roll their eyes as I used to when my parents told me to stop slouching. But I think what they will soon experience is much more dangerous and threatening to their future health: painful necks and shoulders, tight muscles in the back and stiff hips, all of which I am already experiencing after only a few years of the digital age.
No matter how much we warn them, I think this is a problem we are not going to be able to fix.
Photo by Emma Gillespie
