Phone posture is a pain in the neck for young people

Sedentary lifestyles and repeatedly looking down at mobile phones and other devices have led to a huge rise in the number of young people who are experiencing back and neck pain, experts have warned.

Of the 16-to-24-year-olds surveyed by the British Chiropractic Association (BCA), 45% said they are currently living with neck or back pain, compared with 28% of 18-to- 24-year-olds last year.

“When people use laptops or mobile phones in bed they tend to forget their posture, hunch over the screen and leave their spine unsupported, which can damage posture and cause back or neck pain,” said BCA chiropractor Tim Hutchful,

He added that he was “concerned that the number of patients under the age of 30 coming through our doors is increasing”.

Fellow BCA chiropractor Rishi Loatey said he had seen a definite rise in the number of young patients.

“The only sort of neck pain we used to see with that age group was people who had been in car accidents,” he said. “But now the vast majority of neck pains are people from secondary school upwards.”

The BCA found that people in the UK spent an average of two hours a day sitting and looking at mobile technology and almost four hours looking at a laptop or desktop computer.