Locations:
SearchFrom smartphone pinky to text neck, a sports medicine physician goes over injuries you can experience from using your phone and how to avoid them.
Cleveland Clinic News Service | 216.444.0141
We’re available to shoot custom interviews & b-roll for media outlets upon request.
CCNS health and medical content is consumer-friendly, professional broadcast quality (available in HD), and available to media outlets each day.
images: 0
video: 0
audio: 0
text: 0
CLICK HERE to download soundbites, b-roll, script and web article.
For download password, contact ccnewsservice@ccf.org.
CLEVELAND - Can you injure yourself by simply using your phone?
From smartphone pinky to text neck, no one is immune to these types of injuries.
“It doesn't take too long for your muscles, joints and ligaments to get stretched and put in a position where they get strained,” explained Dominic King, DO, sports medicine physician at Cleveland Clinic. “Even just mild use of your smartphone every single day can open up patients to some of these symptoms.”
Dr. King said people can develop smartphone pinky by constantly using it to steady their phone.
The weight of the device on your pinky can compress a nerve – causing numbness and tingling – or it can even leave a small indentation in the finger.
You can also experience something dubbed as text neck if you scroll for too long.
That’s when looking down at your phone begins to strain your neck, potentially leading to muscle pain and spasms.
Dr. King said there are an array of additional injuries that can be linked to using smartphones and other technology as well.
The key to avoiding them is remembering to take a break.
“Every 20 minutes, you should take 20 seconds to look at something that is 20 feet away,” Dr. King said. “What that does is it brings your eyes up to the horizon, it brings your neck back, it brings your shoulders back and it gives you a little bit of a break from your technology.”
Dr. King also recommended using two hands to hold your phone and suggested looking into a grip that you can attach to the back of your device to help steady it in your hands.
Cleveland Clinic is a nonprofit multispecialty academic medical center that integrates clinical and hospital care with research and education. Located in Cleveland, Ohio, it was founded in 1921 by four renowned physicians with a vision of providing outstanding patient care based upon the principles of cooperation, compassion and innovation. Cleveland Clinic has pioneered many medical breakthroughs, including coronary artery bypass surgery and the first face transplant in the United States. Cleveland Clinic is consistently recognized in the U.S. and throughout the world for its expertise and care. Among Cleveland Clinic’s 81,000 employees worldwide are more than 5,743 salaried physicians and researchers, and 20,160 registered nurses and advanced practice providers, representing 140 medical specialties and subspecialties. Cleveland Clinic is a 6,690-bed health system that includes a 173-acre main campus near downtown Cleveland, 23 hospitals, 276 outpatient facilities, including locations in northeast Ohio; Florida; Las Vegas, Nevada; Toronto, Canada; Abu Dhabi, UAE; and London, England. In 2023, there were 13.7 million outpatient encounters, 323,000 hospital admissions and observations, and 301,000 surgeries and procedures throughout Cleveland Clinic’s health system. Patients came for treatment from every state and 132 countries. Visit us at clevelandclinic.org. Follow us at twitter.com/CleClinicNews. News and resources available at newsroom.clevelandclinic.org.
Editor’s Note: Cleveland Clinic News Service is available to provide broadcast-quality interviews and B-roll upon request.
