Trigger thumb. Text claw. Tech neck. Those names might sound straight out of science fiction but the ailments are very real, and odds are good that you’ve experienced at least one of them. 

They’re repetitive stress injuries that come from overuse of things like smartphones and computers, and some people say they’re a sign that modern tech is slowly killing us. But the truth is that conditions like those have always existed. The difference now is that most of us have the choice to avoid them.

Let’s take tech neck, for example. The typical adult head weighs about 5 kilograms, or 11 pounds. Not too bad for all the brain power it holds, but tilt your head forward 45 degrees and you add the equivalent of eight pounds to it. That’s similar to carrying a bowling ball on your head.

No wonder so many of us have chronic neck or shoulder pain, our heads down and shoulders slumped as we scroll our phones and tablets for hours. 

Is this a new phenomenon, the unique price we pay for modern technology? Nope, not at all.

Picture a tailor in the 1800s, or a scribe in ancient Egypt, or a typing pool in the 1950s. Every one of those occupations, and dozens more, made people sit in the same position, heads tilted forward and elbows bent. Put a cell phone or tablet in their hands and their posture wouldn’t look much different from a modern teen playing Minecraft.

Still, the number of hours must make a difference, right? Most of us use our phones all day, from the minute we wake up to the time we go to bed.

Maybe, but consider that most workers toiled incredibly long days, like the thousands of London tailors working in cramped spaces in the 1800s. In 1889, more than ten thousand of them went on strike for better conditions—including a reduction of work hours to a mere 12 hours a day. And that doesn’t include all the extra hours they were forced to work from home.

Modern tech causes other chronic conditions too, of course. Things like text claw and gamer’s thumb, both seen in people that use their hands for repetitive movements, like pinching or gripping.

It might surprise frequent texters, though, to learn that their achey thumb condition also goes by the name De Quervain’s disease—named after the Swiss surgeon Fritz de Quervain, who identified it in 1895. No doubt the legions of lacemakers and leather workers throughout history would be glad to know that their overworked tendons have a proper medical name.

And what of the modern epidemic of myopia, or shortsightedness? Half the world’s population can expect to have myopia by 2050, and two major risk factors are a lack of time outdoors along with too much time staring at things close up.

Well, myopia was first recognized by Aristotle around 350 BC, and by 1600 people were being “warned against near work without sufficient pauses.” 

That sounds a lot like the modern warnings about too much screen time—and the conditions of working-class British women in 1860. If they weren’t spending long hours in a factory, they were doing needlework, the best paid job they could do from home. Days were long, typically around 14 hours, and you can bet the lighting conditions were poor. No adjustable smart-bulbs for them.

So, has modern tech really brought new ailments to society, conditions people didn’t suffer from in the good old days? No, but there is one key difference. As we sit with our heads forward and shoulders hunched, looking like a Victorian tailor while we scroll our social media, at least you and I have a choice.

Photo by Carter Yocham on Unsplash