Health: New Research On 'Text Neck'

By Stephanie Stahl

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Spending hours on your phone? It can cause something called "text neck", which is a growing problem.

Look anywhere and you'll see it. People head down - on a smartphone. Jack Mincui says, "If I'm not working, I'm constantly on my phone." And from Gabriela Vera: "I'm on phone a lot. How much? All the time. Even when I'm watching TV, I'm on the phone."

And there's also all the tablets and laptops. Staying connected has caused an epidemic of text neck: too much pressure on the spine.  "Posture is a problem," says spinal surgeon Ken Hansraj. He says he started thinking about after talking to a patient with neck pain, "He told me that he was playing Angry Birds four hours a day on his iPad -- head down -- heads all the way down."

So Dr. Hansraj worked with engineers to determine a weight value for putting long-term stress on a person's neck. Here's what they found: In a neutral position, the human head weighs 10 to 12 pounds. But when the head is tipped just 15 degrees, pressure from the weight is comparable to 27 pounds.  And when the head is bent forward 60 degrees, like it is for many people when they text, that jumps to 60 pounds!

Debbie Feeney spent seven hours a day looking down to read. After a year with neck pain, the doctor had some simple advice: "Stop reading in bed."

Neurologist Jerry Bauer says it's a problem he sees a lot,  "If you hold your head in a cocked position, it causes muscle strain, muscle fatigue, and when you point it out to people, it becomes very easily understood and people will adjust their lifestyle to correct for it."

The solution: instead of looking down at your phone, doctors say it's better to hold it up at eye level. That takes the pressure off your neck and it's much healthier for your spine.