Doctors warn technology can literally be a pain in your neck
Some health professionals say that your technology can literally be a pain in your neck.
Doctors say text neck is a very real condition, caused by hours of looking down at your phone and other gadgets.
New cases are cropping up around the country and experts are sounding the alarm.
All day, every day people are looking down at iPads, cell phones, laptops and video games.
Now, doctors say it would be causing an epidemic of neck pain.
"Many many people are using their necks in a poor posture or poor position doing many things," said Dr. Ken Hansraj, chief of spine surgery, NY spine surgery and rehabilitation medicine.
De. Hansraj says that over time, text neck can lead to early spine degeneration and even surgery.
Tod Snyder says his neck pain became unbearable.
"I realized that I was on mobile devices for one to two hours a night checking my emails, doing notes on the computer, texting friends, responding back to colleagues," said Snyder.
Dr. Hansraj diagnosed Snyder with text neck and says Tod - like many of his patients - has lost the natural curvature in his spine, pulling it out of alignment from poor posture.
And for teen Matthew David, texting 3 to 4 hours every day exacerbated an old football injury.
"When I started bending my head down I could feel the tension in my neck a lot," said Matthew.
"As a parent it's, it's pretty heartbreaking because, it's an indication of where we are in the times," said Matthew's mom, Marcia.
But some doctors ABC News reached out to say text neck is just a fancy term for pain people have been experiencing for years.
"It's really nothing more than an overuse type of injury, just like you would see with any other kind of repetitive activity," said Dr. Andrew Sama, Associate professor of orthopedic surgery at the Hospital for Special Surgery.
Other doctors tell ABC News that additional studies need to be done to learn more about the issue. In the meantime, Dr. Hansraj says to pay attention to your head and neck.
