I’m going to start this blog with a pretty obvious point:
We spend a LOT of time on our phones.
Adults are constantly telling kids to “get off their devices”… meanwhile we’re replying to emails at dinner, doom-scrolling before bed, and somehow ending up on Instagram when we only meant to check the weather.
The irony isn’t lost on me.
And honestly? I don’t think we can expect kids to have a healthy relationship with devices if we don’t first look at our own.
But that’s a conversation for another day.
Because here’s the thing…
I don’t believe phones are the villain they’re often made out to be.
Our phones are now intertwined with almost everything we do:
- communication
- work
- banking
- navigation
- entertainment
- education
- connection
Could I disappear off-grid into the mountains and live a phone-free life? Absolutely. Romantic in theory. Slightly less practical when you remember you still need to answer emails and pay bills.
So rather than pretending devices don’t exist, I think the more productive conversation is this:
What’s actually happening to our bodies because of the way we live now?
Which brings me to the term:
“Text neck.”
A phrase that’s been floating around for years.
Patients often come into the clinic saying they’ve been diagnosed with “text neck” by a GP or another practitioner.
And every time, I find myself asking the same question:
Is that even a real diagnosis?
Because anatomically speaking, neck flexion isn’t some dangerous movement our bodies were never designed to do.
In fact, quite the opposite.
Our necks are built to move in multiple directions:
- flexion
- extension
- side bending
- rotation
And if we zoom out and look at the anatomy for a second, flexion and extension are actually some of the MOST available movements in the cervical spine.
So why are we acting like looking down is inherently harmful?
Especially when research has never conclusively proven that simply looking down at your phone causes neck pain.
Here is the truth: Humans have been looking down long before smartphones existed.
Take a look at old photos of train commuters in the 1950s (see some images we have added below)
No iPhones.
No TikTok.
Yet almost every single person is looking down:
- reading newspapers
- holding books
- sitting in sustained flexion for the entire commute
And interestingly?
Nobody was talking about “paper neck.”
Or “book neck.”
So maybe the issue isn’t the device itself.
Maybe it’s the bigger picture.
Because compared to previous generations, our overall movement has dramatically decreased.
We:
- drive more
- sit more
- work longer hours
- walk less
- outsource physical activity wherever possible
The average person in the 1950s likely accumulated significantly more movement throughout the day without even trying.
One car per family.
More walking.
More incidental movement.
Less prolonged sitting overall.
So perhaps the conversation shouldn’t be:
“How do we avoid looking down at our phones?”
Maybe the better question is:
“How do we move MORE around the time we spend on our devices?”
Because the problem may not be the position itself.
It may be the lack of variability, recovery, strength, movement, sleep, stress management, and everything happening in between.
And that changes the conversation entirely.
