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This Is What Texting All Day Does To Your Spine

Can you get through this post without worrying about your posture?

Looking down at your phone could be putting up to 60lbs (27kg) of weight on your spine, according to work published in the journal Surgical Technology International.

In the paper, New York surgeon Dr Kenneth Hansraj calculates just how much pressure all that texting and emailing is adding to your back – and the results are not good.

The weight seen by the spine dramatically increases when flexing the head forward at varying degrees. [...] As the head tilts forward the forces seen by the neck surges to 27 pounds at 15 degrees, 40 pounds at 30 degrees, 49 pounds at 45 degrees and 60 pounds at 60 degrees.

Assuming your head weighs 10lbs that's the equivalent of having an extra 50lbs of weight hanging around your neck, or a medium-sized dog, like this one.

H/T The Atlantic