Smart phones are making people ‘horny’. No, really.
New research in biomechanics suggests that young people are developing hornlike spikes at the back of their skulls.
But, there’s more to it.
These are bone spurs caused by the forward tilt of the head. During this motion, the weight is shifted from the spine to the muscles at the back of the heads. This pressure is resulting in ‘bone growth in the connecting tendons and ligaments’, according to the study.
A pair of researchers at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia said that the prevalence of bone growth in younger adults is due to the shifting body postures, which is a result of the use of modern technology.
According to the researchers, this is the first documentation of the impact of advanced technology that is causing bone-deep changes.
3 or 5 millimeters in length, this spike-like feature is known as the ‘external occipital protuberance’. It can be spotted at the lower back of the skull, above the neck.
However, the study is also refuted on multiple grounds. According to John Hawks, a palaeoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin, took to Twitter to refute an article on the study-
Deplorable that the @washingtonpost is spreading the nonsense that “Horns are growing on young people’s skulls”. https://t.co/OUCeNVNZQ9 There is an interesting story here, and part of it is about journalists’ gullibility and moral panics. pic.twitter.com/4Nc7Ow41BY
— John Hawks (@johnhawks) June 20, 2019
Forbes quoted multiple other reasons like – there are ‘errors’ in the 2018 article, Nature: Scientific Reports by Shahar and Mark Sayers, or that the study ‘ignores anthropological research over many decades’.
The actual connection between the relation between the skeletal adaptation and phone usage, if any, remains to be verified.
