Smartphone addiction is threatening to create a generation of teenage hunchbacks, experts have warned. Back and neck specialists claim increasing numbers of young people are suffering pain from too much time stooped over phones, computers and tablets.
Worryingly, around half of those with "text neck" are in their teens -- but some are as young as 7. Dr James Carter, one of Australia's leading chiropractors, said the spine could be pushed more than an inch out of alignment. "The number of people with text neck has more than doubled over the past year."
Carter added more patients were coming in with headaches that could be traced to smartphone usage.
A British study this year found 45 per cent of under-30s complained of a painful back or neck -- up from 28 per cent last year. Across all age groups, 86 per cent said it was problem, compared with 77 per cent last year. Almost one in four said they were in pain daily.
The British Chiropractic Association said that as gadgets get smaller, people lean over them more, putting the neck and the shock-absorbing discs that cushion the vertebrae of the spine under pressure.
