Millennials are notoriously known for a booming cellular phone era! These days any where you go, you’re just about sure to find people face down, zoned into their cell phone. Australian researchers dove into a study of the shape of young adults’ skulls. The results weren’t exactly what they expected. Researchers found that many young people are adapting to extended phone use by growing horn-like bumps on their heads! This is on the heels of previous attention on the topic of how technology is changing the human body.
The bumps—called “head horns,” “phone bones,” and, more simply, “spikes”—have been found on adults between the ages of 18 and 30 in a study by researchers at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia. They say there is evidence of the skull adapting to a new posture used to look down at phone screens for extended periods, forming a spur on the back of the skull much in the same way that hands and feet form calluses.
“These formations take a long time to develop, so that means that those individuals who suffer from them probably have been stressing that area since early childhood,” the study’s author David Shahar told the Washington Post. He explained why the phenomenon appears in people who have had cellphone technology for most of their lives.
Co-author, Mark Sayers, told the paper the spurs are a “portent of something nasty going on elsewhere, a sign that the head and neck are not in the proper configuration.”
Shahar believes educating young people about the importance of posture can fight the ill effects of “text neck.” Of course, they also suggest actually living in the moment and putting the phones down.
Source: Granger Wootz / Getty
Source: Complex
