International Youth Day is coming up on Wednesday, August 12, and I think it’s safe to say that just about every parent of a teenager has, at some point, expressed concern about their child’s posture. Our own parents used to prod us when we failed to “sit up straight.” I admit that, as a kid, I was quite capable of curling into a chair and spending a rainy afternoon reading a good book. The difference was that I also had farm chores to do.
That got me thinking: is using a smartphone for hours really any different from reading a novel for hours? The postures can look remarkably similar. In both cases, you might find yourself sitting with your head tilted forward, shoulders rounded and arms held in front of you. From an ergonomic perspective, though, I would argue that the demands are not quite the same.
For starters, my thumbs were not engaged in repetitive scrolling, tapping and typing when I was reading a book. More importantly, a book has a natural stopping point. You turn a page, put it down, get distracted, walk to the kitchen or, in my case, eventually get reminded that the cows needed to be feed.
A smartphone is a different proposition. The content is essentially endless, and it is specifically designed to keep us engaged. There is no natural point at which the story ends and tells you it is time to put the device down. And the amount of time young people are spending with screens is substantial.
It’s not just about posture
Statistics Canada recently examined screen-time patterns in a group of Canadian youth who were aged 12 to 17 in 2019 and 16 to 21 when they were surveyed again in 2023. The results are striking: 37% exceeded screen-time recommendations in both years, while only 14% met the recommendations in both years.
The differences extended beyond screen use. Young people who met the recommendations in both years were nearly twice as likely to meet physical-activity recommendations. They were also more likely to report excellent or very good mental health, less likely to report that most of their days were very or extremely stressful, and more likely to report grades of 70% or higher.
These findings do not prove that excessive screen time causes poorer health or academic performance. Statistics Canada describes these as associations rather than cause-and-effect relationships. Nevertheless, the findings reinforce an important point. The concern with excessive screen time isn’t simply that young people are looking at a screen instead of looking at something else. It is also that screen time may be replacing physical activity, sleep, social interaction and the natural changes in posture and movement that occur when we go about our daily lives.
The American Academy of Pediatrics reports that teens aged 13 to 18 averaged 8 hours and 39 minutes of media use per day in data collected from 2015 to 2021. That represents a considerable amount of time engaged with a screen. So what does all of this mean for the neck and upper body?
What happens when we look down?
When we look down at a phone, the head moves forward and the muscles of the neck have to work harder to support it. Holding that position for a few seconds is unlikely to be a problem. Holding it for a prolonged period, and then repeating that exposure day after day, is a different matter.
This is a familiar ergonomics issue. We don’t raise the alarm when we identify one “bad” posture. Duration, repetition and a lack of opportunity to change position all contribute to discomfort.
A 2024 study of medical students provides an interesting example. Using a study-specific definition of “text neck syndrome” based on symptoms plus more than four hours of smartphone use per day, researchers found that more than one-quarter of participants met the criteria. Among those with text neck syndrome, 31.7% had some degree of mild neck disability. The study also found associations between text neck syndrome and factors including low physical activity and spending more than three hours a day sitting.
We can’t predict that today’s teenagers are all going to develop permanently damaged spines. Instead, I parents, educators and employers could consider this question: are we teaching young people how to manage prolonged physical exposures before those exposures become a normal part of everyday life?
What can we do?
We aren’t going to banish smartphones, and I don’t think we should. They are now an integral part of school, work, communication and social life. The goal is not to eliminate screen use, but to help young people develop habits that introduce more movement and variation into their days.
Bring the screen up
One simple strategy is to encourage young people to raise their phone rather than automatically dropping their head toward their lap. When sitting on a sofa or bed, supporting the forearms on a pillow can make it easier to hold the phone higher without putting unnecessary strain on the shoulders. (Simply holding the screen up in the arms isn’t practical – the arms will very quickly tire.)
Change positions frequently
Our traditional obsession with “good posture” can sometimes lead us astray. Instead of trying to find the one perfect posture and maintain it, I would much rather see young people change positions regularly. Sit for a while, stand up, walk around, put the phone down, stretch, talk to someone in person and then sit back down. From an ergonomics perspective, variety is more useful than trying to maintain one ideal posture indefinitely.
Give the thumbs a break, too
The neck isn’t the only body part doing work when we use a smartphone. Scrolling, gaming, texting and tapping can involve prolonged and repetitive activity of the thumbs and fingers. Changing activities, using voice-to-text, putting the phone down for a while or simply taking regular breaks can help reduce that exposure. Again, the objective isn’t to eliminate the activity; it is to avoid doing the same thing continuously for hours.
Set up longer screen tasks differently
If homework or other activities require prolonged laptop or tablet use, it is worth thinking about the setup rather than simply telling a young person to “sit up straight.” A tablet or laptop always creates a compromise: raise the screen to improve the viewing height and the keyboard is too high; put the keyboard in a good position and the screen is too low. An external keyboard and mouse can solve that problem by allowing the screen to be positioned at eye height. (Alternatively, use the device’s keyboard and an external screen, placed at eye height.)
It’s exactly the same principle we use in office ergonomics: separating the screen from the keyboard and moue makes the workstation easier to adjust.
Make movement part of the routine
The Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines recommend that children and youth aged 5 to 17 accumulate at least 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity each day and limit recreational screen time to no more than two hours per day.
I don’t think the answer is simply to tell kids to “get off their phones.” Look for ways to make movement part of their normal routines: walking to school, playing outside, participating in sports, taking the dog for a walk, helping around the house or, yes, doing a few farm chores.
Because that’s the part of my childhood that I hadn’t considered when I started thinking about this. I could spend an entire rainy afternoon curled up in a chair reading a book, and I certainly wasn’t sitting there with perfect posture. But eventually, mom or dad would tell me to put the book down and go feed the cows. That interruption may have been more important than I realized.
This International Youth Day, perhaps the message we should be giving young people isn’t simply to “sit up straight.” Instead, let’s help them understand that good ergonomics is less about finding one perfect posture and more about balancing screen time with movement, changing positions and giving the body regular opportunities to do something different.
References
Statistics Canada. (2026). Screen time, physical activity and mental health among Canadian youth, 2019 to 2023. Insights on Canadian Society. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-006-x/2026001/article/00003-eng.htm
American Academy of Pediatrics, Center of Excellence on Social Media and Youth Mental Health. Average amounts of screen time. https://www.aap.org/en/patient-care/media-and-children/center-of-excellence-on-social-media-and-youth-mental-health/qa-portal/qa-portal-library/qa-portal-library-questions/average-amounts-of-screen-time/
Salameh MA, Boyajian SD, Amaireh EA, Jamal B, Alrfooh H, AbuKhalaf K, Alzu’bi OM, Al-Tanbouz HD, Alzyoud K. Prevalence of text neck syndrome, its impact on neck dysfunction, and its associated factors among medical students: A cross-sectional study. Work. 2024;79(3):1111-1119. doi: 10.3233/WOR-230678. PMID: 38875069; PMCID: PMC11613064. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38875069/
Canadian Paediatric Society. How much physical activity and screen time should my child or teen get? https://cps.ca/en/active-actifs/how-much-for-adolescents