Texting long messages can be a pain in the neck - literally.
The repetitive action of working your fingers across the number pad of your cell phone can cause some of the same chronic pain problems previously confined to those who'd spent a lifetime typing, a new study suggests.
The possible connection is particularly worrying given how much teens and young adults - and increasingly those in professional settings - are texting nowadays, said Judith Gold of Temple University in Philadelphia, who carried out one of the first studies on the potential connection.
Text messaging is a fairly new technology, Gold says, so this is a new area of research for those who study ergonomics. But the links between carpal tunnel syndrome, bursitis, and tendonitis for office workers and others who spend much of their day typing are firmly established, and "given the similarities in body position, findings from research on overuse injuries from computers could be applicable" to texting, Gold said.
"The way the body is positioned for texting - stationary shoulders and back with rapidly moving fingers - is similar to the position for typing on a computer," Gold explained.
Previous research has found pain in the elbow associated with too much thumb texting. Doctors' case reports have also referenced individual instances of "texting tendonitis" and "Blackberry thumb," Gold said.
"That suggests that there is something going on," Gold told LiveScience.
Read full story: Save your fingers
The repetitive action of working your fingers across the number pad of your cell phone can cause some of the same chronic pain problems previously confined to those who'd spent a lifetime typing, a new study suggests.
The possible connection is particularly worrying given how much teens and young adults - and increasingly those in professional settings - are texting nowadays, said Judith Gold of Temple University in Philadelphia, who carried out one of the first studies on the potential connection.
Text messaging is a fairly new technology, Gold says, so this is a new area of research for those who study ergonomics. But the links between carpal tunnel syndrome, bursitis, and tendonitis for office workers and others who spend much of their day typing are firmly established, and "given the similarities in body position, findings from research on overuse injuries from computers could be applicable" to texting, Gold said.
"The way the body is positioned for texting - stationary shoulders and back with rapidly moving fingers - is similar to the position for typing on a computer," Gold explained.
Previous research has found pain in the elbow associated with too much thumb texting. Doctors' case reports have also referenced individual instances of "texting tendonitis" and "Blackberry thumb," Gold said.
"That suggests that there is something going on," Gold told LiveScience.
Read full story: Save your fingers
