There's a gesture that's repeated dozens of times a day without thinking: lowering your head to read a message
SANTO DOMINGO – An adult's head weighs between 10 and 12 pounds when upright, aligned with the spine, thanks to its natural design in which the neck supports that weight without extra effort. But as soon as the head is tilted forward to look at a screen, the physics change.
Researcher Kenneth Hansraj measured it in a now classic study: at a 60-degree tilt, the typical angle when texting while looking down, the load on the cervical spine can reach about 60 pounds.
It's that simple: it's like carrying an 8-year-old child hanging from your neck, for several hours a day, and it's not an isolated sensation.
A meta-analysis published in 2025 in the Postgraduate Medical Journal, which gathered information from more than 10,700 people in different studies, found that those who use cell phones excessively have more than twice the risk of developing neck pain than those who use them in moderation.
The researchers themselves describe it as a growing public health problem, not just a passing annoyance.
The problem is staying still
It's not that cell phones are "bad" for your back, but rather that the body isn't designed to maintain a single posture for extended periods. Physiotherapist Jesús Arribas sums it up with a phrase worth repeating: "The best posture is the one you hold for the shortest time.".
In other words, the real enemy is not how we sit or lean, but how long we stay exactly the same.
Arribas also warns about what happens when pain appears and we simply endure it or decide to remain immobile waiting for it to go away: the body becomes more sensitive to that pain and the fear of movement appears, which in turn generates more stiffness and muscle weakness.
It's a self-reinforcing cycle, but there's good news, says Arribas, that structures like the lumbar region and neck are much more resilient than fear makes us believe, and they respond well to movement and progressive strengthening.
Recommendations for everyday life
You don't need to put down your phone or become an ergonomics expert; simply incorporating a few small habits can bring relief and prevent pain:
- Raise your phone to eye level instead of lowering your head to it, especially during video calls or when reading something long, like you used to read books in school. Although it may seem like a minor detail, it greatly reduces the angle of your neck tilt.
- Change your posture every 20 or 30 minutes, even if it's just getting up, stretching your arms, or gently turning your neck from side to side. Remember: it's not the posture itself that causes pain, but the lack of change.
- Strengthen beyond just your neck. Arribas recommends also working your glutes, legs, and back with strength training sessions two to four times a week, because a strong body distributes daily loads better and prevents pain from taking hold.
- If you experience a temporary discomfort, avoid complete rest. Moving within your limits is more helpful than remaining immobile and waiting for it to pass.
- And if the pain becomes frequent or doesn't improve with these changes, don't normalize it: make an appointment with a physiatrist who can assess your case and guide you with an appropriate plan, before that "minor detail" becomes something more difficult to resolve.
Ultimately, structural well-being does not depend on perfect postures or abandoning technology, but on listening to the body and giving it what it needs: movement, variety, and strength.
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