We all rely so heavily on phones these days and there’s no denying that they improve our lives in a lot of different ways. Carrying a smartphone with you makes life a lot easier, but there are some downsides to owning a phone. There are plenty of people out there that complain about millennials being glued to our phones all of the time and even though that’s an exaggeration, it might be a good idea to cut back on your screen time because it could be damaging your health. These are just some of the ways that your smartphone could be bad for your health.

Text Neck

If you’re staring at your phone all of the time, it can cause you a lot of problems with your neck and your back. It’s so common that doctors have a term for it; text neck. Most people tend to hunch over when they look at their phones and if you’re scrolling through social media all day long, you can end up with a stiff and painful neck. The best way around text neck is to cut down on your phone use, but you should also take a bit more notice of how you hold it. It might feel a bit unnatural but it’s a lot better for you if you hold it directly in front of your face. If you think that you’ve already done some damage, you need to try to do some stretches to loosen the muscles in your next again.

Hearing Damage

If you’re using your phone to listen to music with headphones, you could be doing some damage to your hearing. Most people don’t realize how dangerous it can be to listen to music or even use the hands-free on full volume. Over time, it can do permanent damage to your hearing. If you listen to music on your phone a lot, you should take a hearing test online to check that you haven’t already done some damage. You should also follow the 60/60 rule; that means only listen for 60 minutes without a break and try to keep the volume at 60 percent or lower.

Mental Health Issues

There has been a lot of debate about the link between social media and mental health issues recently and it’s something that you should definitely consider. It’s very common for people to experience self-esteem issues if you are using social media a lot and that can feed into wider mental health problems. It’s easy to look at social media and compare yourself to others, and when everybody seems to have an amazing carefree life, it can make you feel bad about yourself. That’s why cutting down on social media is a simple change that could improve your mental health. That doesn’t mean that social media is terrible and you should never use it because it can be a positive thing if you use it in the right way. But it’s important that you recognize it for what it is and don’t get too hung up on it.

Some people do go a bit overboard with their criticisms of smartphones but you should think about cutting back a bit because it could be damaging your health.