We spend hours staring at screens each day, but which health risks are backed by research and which remain disputed? Experts from Rambam and Sheba explain what prolonged screen use does to the neck, eyes and handsWe check our phones dozens, sometimes hundreds, of times a day. They are with us at work, at school, on the road, at dinner and even in the moments before we go to sleep. For years, research focused mainly on the effects of screen time on sleep, concentration and mental health. But in recent years, a growing body of evidence has suggested that prolonged screen use may also affect the body itself.Neck pain, strain on the spine, eye fatigue, rising rates of nearsightedness and even hand pain have all been linked in recent years to the long hours we spend in front of phones and computers. So how concerned should we be, and what has actually been proven by research?GalleryA woman with burning eyes from excessive phone use (AI illustration)Until a few years ago, neck pain was associated mainly with older adults. Today, however, growing numbers of young people are arriving at orthopedic clinics with the same complaints.“As spine surgeons, in recent years we have been seeing more and more young people coming to clinics with severe neck and upper back pain, and the common denominator among them is simply hours spent in front of screens,” said Dr. Shachar Vider, a senior physician in the Spine Surgery Unit at Rambam Health Care Campus. “The term ‘text neck’ is no longer just an expression. It is a real problem.”To understand exactly what happens to the neck during phone use, researchers from the unit recently conducted a study published in the Journal of Spine Surgery. The researchers recruited young, healthy volunteers and took real-time X-rays as they held their phones and texted, both while standing and sitting, to examine how neck angles changed from a neutral position during screen use.Prolonged phone use has been linked to strain on the neck, eye fatigue and pain in the hands (Photo: Shutterstock)The study found that the most significant strain occurred in the upper part of the neck. “While normal age-related degeneration usually occurs in the lower part of the neck, the X-rays of young people while texting showed that the most pronounced changes and strain occurred in the upper neck, at the junction between the base of the skull and the first vertebrae,” Vider said. “We are essentially creating a new kind of degeneration at a younger age.”Dr. Shachar Vider Photo: CourtesyThe study also examined differences between using a phone while sitting and while standing. “Sitting and texting is the worst combination,” she said. “We found that the distortion in the angles and the strain on the cervical vertebrae were much worse when the volunteers were sitting and texting than when they were standing. When we sit, we have a natural tendency to slump forward, the body loses awareness of its posture and the neck absorbs the entire load.”According to Vider, bending the head while using a phone significantly increases the load placed on the spine. “When the head is upright, it weighs about five kilograms. But based on the measurements we analyzed in the paper, once we bend the neck forward at a 60-degree angle to look at a screen, the effective load on the spine rises to nearly 27 kilograms. You can imagine the strain the discs and muscles have to sustain for hours.”Experts explain which harms linked to screens are already backed by research and which are still under review (Photo: Shutterstock)Bending the head while using a phone significantly increases the strain on the spine (Photo: Shutterstock)Still, she stressed that there is no need to give up the phone. “The good news is that this can be addressed without throwing away your phone. My biggest tip is simply to raise the phone to eye level instead of lowering your head toward it. And if you are sitting and writing a long message, lean back and rest your elbows on the table or armrest. That will automatically raise the phone and reduce the strain on the back of the neck.”Many people are convinced that long hours in front of phones and computers cause irreversible eye damage. But according to Dr. Elinor Megiddo-Barnir, head of the Cataract Service at Sheba Medical Center’s Eye Institute, the reality is more complicated.Dr. Elinor Megiddo-Barnir