The Scary Ways Your Phone Drives Addiction, Anxiety, and More Will Shock You

Our cellphones are basically arm extensions. We are on them constantly — emailing, scrolling, and above all, texting. But your habit of spending most of your day messaging everyone in your contact list isn’t just time consuming, it’s also detrimental to your health. Don’t believe us? Check out the shocking ways your phone is bad for your health.

For starters, it shortens your lifespan

All that hunching over will hurt you in the long run. | M-imagephotography/iStock/Getty Images Plus

This surely sounds extreme, but unfortunately, it’s 100% true. Hunching over your phone creates bad posture, which can cut years off your life. Maintaining a forward-leaning posture over long periods of time constricts blood flow and can inevitably shift the position of your organs. Not to mention it can hurt your muscles.

It drives addiction

Maybe we’re all too connected? | iStock.com/AntonioGuillem

As if it wasn’t bad enough that texting causes you physical pain, chronic messaging can mess with your brain as well. The instant gratification you get from receiving text messages and other mobile notifications releases dopamine in the brain and gives you a sense of satisfaction and pleasure. But this can get you into a dopamine-induced loop, where you can’t stop texting because your brain continues to seek that satisfied feeling.

You will lose sleep …

All that late night texting will catch up with you. | iStock.com/kasinv

It’s annoying when your text alert goes off as you are falling asleep. What’s worse, is that this occurrence has an overall negative impact on your sleep cycle. Studies have linked texting with sleep deprivation, especially in teens and young adults. Texting before bed can also manifest into “sleep texting” in which a person reads and responds to texts while technically asleep, only to wake up and not remember reading or replying to the message.

… and develop anxiety

Sometimes those texts aren’t so easy to decipher. | iStock.com/nandyphotos

There are multiple ways that texting sends your anxiety levels through the roof. Misunderstanding a text can understandably cause you unwanted stress. An even bigger culprit is asking a question via text and not receiving an answer as quickly as you would like — spending a long period of time waiting for a response can send you into an anxiety-riddled state.

Bad habits develop

Could incessant texting lead to something more? | iStock.com/LittleBee80

There’s proof that teenagers can develop bad habits from constant texting. WebMD reports on a study conducted by the Case Western Reserve School of Medicine that showed teens who spend too much time texting are more prone to binge drinking and getting into physical fights.

It hurts your neck …

That texting slump doesn’t do your neck any favors. | iStock.com/SIphotography

We already discussed that chronic texting gives you bad posture. More specifically, the forward posture puts unnecessary weight on the neck. This can lead to a misaligned spine which causes muscle pain, herniated disks, and pinched nerves. And if your nerves are pinched, then other parts of your body begin to suffer …

… and your arms

Be careful of how much you use your phone. | iStock.com/Ondine32

Chronic texting puts all sorts of stress on your limbs. Cell phone elbow, in which the ulnar nerve is pinched, can cause pain and tingling going down the arm. Tendinitis can develop in your wrists from holding onto your phone so much. And your fingers? You may develop on-going pain and arthritis in the thumb that you use to type out all those messages.