Smartphones might be responsible for bad posture and more. In an opinion
piece in The New York Times (December
12, 2015) it stated that Smartphones might cause the text neck or the iPosture
– or the iHunch as New Zealand
physiotherapist, Steve August, calls the posture people make when continually looking at their smartphones. These aren’t new terms, but the article also
mentions what it can lead to – bad posture may cause more than a stiff neck –
psychologically more.
Steve August says he is seeing more ‘stooped’ teenagers in his
physiotherapy practice. The average head weighs about 10-12 pounds (4-5
kilograms). He says that when people bend their necks forward 60 degrees (when
looking at Smartphones) the stress on the neck increases to 60 pounds (27
kilograms).
The article also mentions a 2010 study in the Brazilian Psychiatric Association journal in which depressed
patients were more likely to stand with their necks bent forward, shoulders
collapsed, and arms drawn toward the body. Hence mood causes a stoop.
Mood may cause a stoop, but it
was also found that a stoop can affect a person’s mood. In a study in Health Psychology in 2015, researcher
Shwetha Nair asked half of non-depressed participants to sit in an upright
position and the other half to sit in a slouched posture. Each participant was asked mock job interview questions (which were regarded as well-established
inducers of stress), followed by a series of questionnaires.
The result of the Nair study showed that the slouchers reported
significantly lower self-esteem and mood – and greater fear – than the upright
sitters. Posture even affected the interview answers. A linguistic analysis of
the answers showed that slouchers were much more negative in their verbal
answers. The researchers concluded that ‘sitting upright may be a simple
behavioral strategy to help build resilience to stress.’
Slouching may also affect memory. In a study published in the Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy journal
in 2014 half of the participants with clinical depression were randomly
assigned to sit upright, while half were assigned to sit in a slouched
position. Each participant was presented with a list of positive and negative
words. They were later asked to remember them. When they recalled them, the
results showed that the slouchers had a negative recall bias (remembering the
negative words more than the positive words). However, the upright sitters
showed no bias toward positive or negative words.
The author of the opinion piece, Amy Cuddy, and her colleague Maarten W.
Bos, conducted preliminary research on the iHunch. They randomly assigned participants to interact for five
minutes with one of four electronic devices that varied in size: smartphone,
tablet, laptop, and desk computer. They studied how long the participants would
wait to ask the experimenter whether they could leave the room after the experiment has
clearly finished.
The results showed that the size of the electronic device significantly
affected the comfort level of participants. The people with smartphones who sat
in a slouched, collapsed position were less assertive, less likely to stand up
themselves to ask when they could leave the room after the experiment finished.
The authors noted a linear relationship between the size of the electronic
device and the extent to which it affects people: the smaller the device,
the more the body is contracted to use it, and the more shrunken and inward the
posture, the more submissive the person is likely to become.
The article says there are ways to avoid the iHunch – keep your head up and shoulders back, even if it means
holding the Smartphone at eye level. Stretch and massage the muscles between
the shoulder blades and the muscles along the sides of the neck.
I remember what my mother said years ago – sit up Martina! Shoulders back, Martina! One university lecturer
used to remark that I had an extraordinarily straight back when sitting. But I
didn’t have a Smartphone back then.
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