Looking at the smartphone screen for a prolonged time is associated with chronic neck pain, specially in young adults

Introduction/Background Never has a technology been so universally accepted as the smartphone. Of concern is the potential consequences of its prolonged use. Studies have conflictive results to find an association between them and musculoskeletal disorders. Looking at the small screen of these devices would be a crucial factor for bad neck posture, and therefore we studied if that would be related to chronic neck pain. Material and method A national cross-sectional interview survey was carried out to the adult Peruvian population with a probabilistic sample on February 2017, through the market research institute GfK. Chronic neck pain was considered for those who referred pain in the neck, the nape and/or the upper shoulders at least once a week on average for the last 6 months. Prolonged look at the smartphone's screen was defined for those who responded reading e-mails and news, watching photos or videos, or interacting with social networks for two or more hours a day on average. Odds ratios were calculated using multivariate simple logistic regression with IBM SPSS 20. Results A total of 1246 responded to the survey. The OR between chronic neck pain and prolonged look at the smartphone screen was 1.604, P  > 0.01, and in the 18–24-yrs-old group was 3.078, P  > 0.002. These results were adjusted for gender, socioeconomic status, mental stress and prolonged use of other computer devices (PC, laptop, tablet) ( Table 1 ). Conclusion We found an association between prolonged looking at the smartphone screen and chronic neck pain in the general population, being three times higher in young adults. The use of smartphones is not harmful per se, but it seems that the bad posture using them would be the critical factor. We recommend preventive health campaigns about proper posture when using these devices.