It seems these days that each new technology needs to have its own health scare in order to qualify as a craze. The latest is text messaging, a simple form of communication that is rapidly increasing in popularity. But overindulging could cause serious health risks … apparently.

Do you play video games? Then you’re doing untold damage to yourself. Talk on mobile phones? Drive a car? You rebel. If you believed every health scare you read about you’d never do anything. And I mean anything. So unless you want to spend the rest of your life in bed you’d better stop reading now.

It isn’t me claiming texting is harmful to your health, it’s actually The New York Times, that most esteemed of publications which surely wouldn’t want to scare anyone into believing a perfectly benign activity is going to half-kill you. Why then has it recently published a lengthy article explaining how cellphone messaging is “beginning to worry physicians and psychologists.”

The article seems to have been sparked by Nielsen figures claiming the average U.S. teenager “sent and received an average of 2,272 text messages per month in the fourth quarter of 2008.” That’s an average of around 80 messages a day. And this level of activity is bad because it can lead to anxiety, repetitive strain injury, and sleep deprivation. As well as falling grades caused by distraction in school.

Now I’m sorry but there has always been distractions present in school, it just happens that texting is the latest of these. The opposite sex is much more likely to be a cause for falling grades. As for the others, there may be some evidence to suggest excessive texting can contribute to RSI but anxiety and sleep deprivation? I just can’t see it.

Also, text messaging has been popular in Europe for years and we’re not all walking round with crippled hands and taking Prozac. I have friends who text thousands of times a month, including while I’m eating/watching a film/ chatting to them. And their only symptom is being rude as hell.

To say I’m skeptical about this story would be an understatement. I’m sure there are health risks associated with text messaging but there’s health risks associated with any kind of activity, especially if it’s done to the nth degree and those health risks are avidly searched for.

Mark my words, it won’t be long until some journalist faced with a slow news day comes up with a reason why Facebook and Twitter are harmful to your health.

Related:

Entry was posted on Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 at 11:31 pm under Amusing, Cell phones, Opinion, Technology.

Read more entries by Dave Parrack.
Stumble It!