What a tedious process of constantly reaching for the cell phone to check notifications, write the notes or send a message to a friend. You walk on the street, you pull out of your pocket a cell phone and – hunching over it to check something that you’ve thought would be relevant.
It turns out that the cell phones have a negative impact on our cervical spine. Are you wondering why they’re affecting cervical spine rather than our eyes?
According to the new research study conducted by Kenneth Hansraj, a chief spinal and orthopaedic surgeon at the New York Spine Surgery and Rehabilitation Medicine in the US, constantly bending head down to check the mobile device significantly harming the cervical spine.
Hansraj calculated how varying degrees of curvature adversely affected a person’s spine.
For instance, at zero degrees of tilt, the resting pressure is equal to the weight of the person’s head – five kg, or 10 pounds. However, for each 15 degrees of tilt, the pressure and the weight increase. You can see these changes on the image below. So at the maximum tilt, which is 60 degrees, a person feels around 27 kg or 60 pounds of force on the cervical spine.
This research is essential because people spend an average of two to four hours a day with their heads tilted over interacting with their smartphones and other mobile devices. Cumulatively this is 700 to 1400 hours a year of excess stress to the cervical spine.
These numbers can even be higher for the modern teens as they spend an extra 5,000 hours in poor posture.
This research shows that people should start spending less time hunching over their devices for tasks that could be done in different ways.
However, how can we stay as productive as we are now?
MYLE is an assistive technology that does your routine job for you. Whether you’re writing a message, a note, making a calendar meeting, or filling fitness or working logs.
This miniature device has a sleek design and powered with the latest breakthroughs in the speech recognition technologies. It lets you control your apps via only voice keeping your posture at zero degrees of tilt.
For instance, you can tap and say, “Email to Edward – ‘thank you for your respond, let’s meet afternoon tomorrow at the local coffee shop, – Jess.'”
Your message will be automatically converted to text and instantly sent to Edward letting him know that you received his message, and you’re going to wait for him at your local cozy coffee shop.
Thus, MYLE aims to do what Hansraj explains in his research,
“While it is nearly impossible to avoid the technologies that cause these issues, individuals should make an effort to look at their phones with a neutral spine and to avoid spending hours each day hunched over.”