My smartphone caused a lot of damage to my wrist...and this is my story

Editor's note: Antoinette Radford, a member of the Ofoq News team of content creators, shares her experience with wrist pain. - I started feeling mild pain in my right wrist. I thought it was caused by excessive exercise, so I stopped lifting weights with my right arm. Did I carry heavy bags or did I trip and fall on my wrist?

One morning, the pain intensified as soon as I started typing on the keyboard. Then I realized that the injury may not have been the result of a single accident, but rather due to my use of the smartphone, or rather excessive use of it.

The hands contain tendons, small bones, muscles, and nerves that all pass through the wrist, making them vulnerable to stress and damage from the thousands of precise, repetitive movements we make every day, especially when typing on the phone. Three main disorders are associated with excessive use of smartphones: There is also what is known as “smartphone pinky”, which is a temporary dent in the little finger caused by the way the phone is held and repetitive movements, although it is not classified as a medical condition.

Dr. Arielle Williams, an orthopedic surgeon who specializes in hand and upper extremity surgery at Yale Medical Center, said she is treating a growing number of patients whose symptoms have been exacerbated by cell phone use, or whose problems began after they changed the way they use them. “This is likely due to a combination of the repetitive movements we make while using the phone, along with staying in a certain position for long periods,” added Williams, an assistant professor of orthopedic surgery at Yale University School of Medicine.

She continued: "All of these factors increase pressure on bones, joints, ligaments, and tendons, and may also lead to changes that cause increased pressure on nerves." It is still too early to determine whether technology use affects the hands or wrists more.

“This problem affects the wrists and hands, and some of the cases we see may even start in the elbows,” Williams said. “The hands and wrists are very complex areas, and they constantly undergo precise, repetitive movements.”

Every time we browse the phone or send a text message, the effects of these movements accumulate and cause stress over time.” The effect of use on the neck The effect of continuous use of technological devices is not limited to the hands and wrists, but also extends to the neck, which in turn is exposed to great stress.

The term "Tech Neck" is used to describe the associated symptoms. These symptoms include: Kelly Robinson, an ergonomics physiotherapist based in Dubai, said that this problem requires increasing attention, especially as people increasingly rely on their phones to accomplish their daily affairs, in light of the spread of artificial intelligence technologies.

She added: “The smartphone and laptop have become a part of everyone’s life, whether in personal or professional life, or most likely both.” Technology neck may cause headaches and fatigue. The neck contains important nerves and nerve pathways, and repeatedly bending forward while using devices may lead to headaches and fatigue, as well as increased pressure on the back of the neck.

Robinson said: “A lot of research has been conducted on this topic, and it has shown that increasing the neck bend angle by 10 or 20 degrees when looking at the phone, for example, increases the load on the lower neck and its joints.” She added: "If I tilt my head down at an angle of only 30 degrees, I triple the load on the neck structures, to about 15 to 20 kilograms."

Robinson offers a set of simple tips to reduce the pain associated with using technology: