Text neck and neck pain in 18–21-year-old young adults

Addiction to the use of mobile phones among the young adults for texting is drastically increased during the 21^st century. The number of studies reported the increased prevalence of neck pain with wrong head posture during the mobile usage, but its association between neck posture and neck pain is still unclear. Therefore in this study, the author showed that improper head and neck posture during mobile phone usage is the major cause of the growing prevalence of neck pain.

To assess whether there is a correlation between neck pain and text neck among young adults.

A total of 150 adults of age 8–21 year from a public school of the Rio de Janeiro were selected. The adults filled a self-report questionnaire related to anthropometric factors, concern with the body posture, sociodemographic factors, the time consumed playing or texting on a mobile phone, and visual impairments.  Participants’ self-perception and physiotherapists’ judgment was utilized to assess the neck posture during a mobile phone texting message task. Further, the neck pain was evaluated using a Young Spine Questionnaire. Considering potential confounding factors, the association between the neck posture during mobile phone texting and neck pain was assessed by applying the four multivariate logistic regression models.

No relationship was seen neither between neck posture, assessed by physiotherapists’ judgment, and neck pain and related frequency nor between neck posture, assessed by self-perception, and neck pain and related frequency.

No association was noticed between the neck pain and text neck among the young adults.