Doctor: Excessive smart phone use can lead to injuries

Excessive smart phone use can lead to injuries

Smart phones can cause physical injuries, doctors say, if used for too long. From smartphone pinky to text neck, sports medicine doctors say no one is immune to these types of injuries.

Smart phones can cause physical injuries, doctors say, if used for too long.

From “smartphone pinky” to “text neck,” no one is immune to these types of injuries, according to sports medicine doctors.

Dr. Dominic King with the Cleveland Clinic said you can get smartphone pinky by constantly using it to steady your phone. The weight of the device on your pinky can lead to numbness and tingling, or it can leave a small indentation in the finger.

You can also experience something dubbed as “text neck” if you scroll for too long. That’s when looking down at your phone for too long causes strain in your neck, potentially leading to muscle pain and spasms. Dr. King said the key to avoiding these types of injuries is remembering to take a break.

“Every 20 minutes, you should take 20 seconds to look at something that is 20 feet away,” he said. “What that does is it brings your eyes up to the horizon, it brings your neck back, it brings your shoulders back and it gives you a little bit of a break from your technology.”

Dr. King also recommends using two hands to hold your phone and use a grip that you can attach to the back of your device to help steady it in your hands.