By Helaina Thompson
The saying doesn’t exactly go sex, drugs, and ergonomics.
Rather, ergonomics — the science of tools, spaces, and techniques that reduce musculoskeletal strain — is often neglected as students go about their day. Yet millennials accustomed to gazing straight down at their phones and laptops are entering into an “ergonomic tsunami,” said Marcus Seaton, a physical therapist and manager of the University of Iowa Ergonomics Program.
“When you’re standing straight up and down, your head is supporting about 12 pounds of weight,” Seaton said. “Anytime your head moves forward from your shoulders to look down at your iPhone or laptop, your neck is trying to support about 42 pounds.” As a result, Seaton worries that neck and back pain felt by today’s 50-year-olds may show up in tomorrow’s 30-year-olds.
One Baylor University study found college students spent eight to 10 hours per day on their phones. Meanwhile, 85 percent of college students owns a laptop, according to the national Back-to-School Technology Usage Survey.
It is nearly a given that using a laptop will result in bad posture. If you are reading this article on a laptop, see for yourself: Can you look at your screen without bending your neck forward? Are your forearms in line with your keyboard? Are your elbows, hips, and feet at ninety-degrees?
Answering no to any of these questions may lead to what the University of North Carolina School of Medicine has coined laptop-itis: “The symptoms are familiar to any student who has ever spent a long night pounding out a paper on a laptop computer: an aching neck, throbbing head, and tingling fingers.”
Speaking as a 20-something, my concern is this: Millennials are fully aware we spend too much time with technology. Those stiff necks and hand cramps offer subtle reminders. Parents and grandparents offer not-so-subtle reminders. Still, we don’t change our habits because it doesn’t hurt enough — yet.
We are human. We juice cleanse. We buy lottery tickets. In other words, we do irrational things. But we are also capable of making good decisions now to secure a better future. I assume this is why many of us are in college using our laptops in the first place.
The easiest habit students can adopt is changing postures every half hour, Seaton said. Moving from the couch to the floor to a desk will alleviate the strain of one prolonged position. Ergonomists also encourage frequent technology users to get up and stretch for five minutes every hour. Placing a textbook or two beneath one’s laptop can lift the line of sight, and consequently, one’s head. So can lifting one’s phone just a few inches. And, if possible, students should work at desktop computers with adjustable chairs and tabletops or purchase laptop stands with corresponding detached keyboards for an on-the-go ergonomic solution.
That’s right. Adjustable chairs. Detached keyboards. The glamour.