Name: Tech neck.

Age: Two years old.

Appearance: The next stage of human evolution.

This sounds exciting! Are we all going to be cyborgs soon? Not exactly.

Then what on earth is tech neck? That’s easy. It’s the hunch you develop from staring at your phone too much.

That’s less exciting. And less deniable. It has been claimed by the Australian Chiropractors Association that our compulsive use of mobile devices is changing the shape of our bodies.

How? Let’s say you hold your phone at an angle that makes you lower your head by 60 degrees. That adds approximately 27kg (60lbs) of weight through your spine. Now, imagine doing that for several hours every day. That’s one messed up back.

Hang on, you said that tech neck is only two years old. Phones are older than that, and “text neck” was identified as an ailment in 2011, but the pandemic made things so much worse.

It did? For month after month you were starved of normal human contact, and had to communicate with the rest of the world through your phone. And when you weren’t doing that, you spent your time doom-scrolling in horror through a barrage of some of the worst news in modern history.

That sounds just like me. Me too. And guess what? All that bad news was a pain in the neck.

Well, on the plus side phones have only harmed us in one way. Or two, if you count “phone thumb”, a condition where your thumb can become inflamed from prolonged texting.

OK, fine, two ways. Or three, if you factor in the claim that the blue light emitted by phones can interfere with melatonin production. Or four, if you count the eye strain you get from prolonged use. And a couple of years ago it was suggested that humans are growing bone spurs at the base of their skulls to counter all the terrible phone-related posture.

Please, stop! Do you want to know the good news?

Yes! Anything! The posture problem is easy to correct. You can do a simple stretch, where you interlock your fingers behind your head and hold your elbows against a wall.

That’s promising. Or you could try holding your phone at eye level, to reduce the pressure on your spine. Or make an extra effort to stay active throughout the day.

This is good. I can do this. Then again, there is a better way to combat tech neck.

This sounds ominous. You could always try not using your phone as much.

Never! The humps are worth it! Suit yourself.

Do say: “The best way to avoid tech neck is to put your phone down.”

Don’t say: “You know, in a minute, after you’ve watched all those TikToks.”