Are Cell Phones Mutating The Shape Of Our Bones?

What if cellphones were so powerful that they could mutate the shape of our bones. This is a surprising new topic that's recently been popping up all over the media. It stems from a scientific report that suggests using phones and tablets can cause serious and long-lasting changes to our bodies and not in a way that you might think. In the past few years a study has been carried out by David Shahar and Mark Sayers who specialized in Biomechanics at Australia's University of the Sunshine Coast. Biomechanics looks at how mechanical laws apply to living organisms from how humans run to how insects beat their wings. Shahar and Sayers' study also involves Osteobiography, this is used to work out what someone's life was like from their bones.

It's been known for some time that skeletons adapt to a person's lifestyle. Every set of bones tells a story. For example, some unusually large skeletons were found on the Pacific island of Tinian in 1924. Stone structures in the vicinity of the skeletons explained the substantial nature of the island's bones. By working with heavy stones they had naturally developed bigger arms, legs and collarbones. And over in Australia, Shahar and Sayers believe that modern tech is shaping young people's skeletons. So how is it doing this, it's all to do with something called an EOP or external occipital protuberance. Some experts and commentators have been more colorful and described it as a foam ball or a devil-like horn. In reality, the EOP is a growth of bone found in the back of the skull, it’s connected to the nuchal ligament. This is an important ligament that plays a role in connecting neck muscles to the skull. The EOP creates an effect a lot like an anchor at the top of the nuchal ligament. Now let's go back to what the researchers were actually doing with the study in the first place, by looking at chiropractor's x-rays of people aged between 18 to 86, they wanted to get an up-to-date insight into how skeletons change because a lot of these x-rays were investigating things like neck pains. There's also an element of what consequences these changes may have on our health. Shahar and Sayers noticed that in young people the EOP appeared to be more widespread. From this they hypothesized that young people's posture, while constantly checking their phones and tablets, was a major factor during screen time. The neck instinctively cranes forward, the theory is that by craning forward, extra pressure is put on the area where skull meets muscle. To compensate, the EOP gets gradually longer, growing to around several millimeters. The effect has also been referred to as “text neck”. The findings also revealed that it was mostly found in men.

In 2016, Shahar and Sayers reported a bigger EOP in 67% of men compared to 20% of women based on a test group of 218 people. By 2018, they had looked at 1200 people with males appearing to be 5 times more likely to get these large “text necks”. But what is the potential impact on humanity. We hear a lot about the radiation from phones potentially linked to cancer but can using a mobile device actually create significant health problems in the body. This new report has opened up the debates on this topic since it's the first case where experts are explicitly pointing out how tech is affecting our bodies. Shahar and Sayers described the elongated EOP as a degenerative process implying things are only gonna get much worse for young people if they keep using their devices. There is also something called "text thumb" or "thumb arthritis" where thumbs can develop serious problems similar to the dreaded carpal tunnel syndrome. However; the study of EOP’s and referring to them as horns or spikes has been criticized by others in the press. Experts point out that the report is not conclusive and like any scientific paper it makes assumptions. Archeologists will tell you that longer skull bones are nothing new and that they are especially common in males. The general view, according to the study’s critics, is that there simply isn't enough hard evidence to back up the claim that you are actually turning into Hellboy by using your cell phones.

So are Shahar and Sayers on to something or have they simply taken along established facts and fitted them into their own explanation. Either way there's no denying the dramatic impact that technology has on our lives. The idea that upcoming generations are changing due to constant interaction with their devices is really a serious issue that needs to be addressed. Ultimately, it will be the archaeologists of the future that make that call maybe don't even have big spikes sticking out of the back of their necks in the future, who knows. So yeah, maybe a little more walk in the park and a little less Angry Birds.