Conversation has died down and the art of letter writing has declined with the rise of BlackBerrys and smart phones. But the latest report is that such gadgets sometimes have even deadly health hazards. Young people using cell phones complain of a shooting pain in their arms and numbness in their fingers. US doctors call it text neck. Sitting hunched over a gadget screen and typing away damages ligaments, tendons and musculators and can even hurt finger bones. There is also the BlackBerry thumb, a painful swelling that comes of hours of typing on a small keyboard using only two thumbs.
Then came the I Pad. It can be a boon to chiropractors. A Harvard study has revealed that people spend even more time crouching over their I Pads than over their phones. It is larger and so a more attractive device to read from. Some read entire books and some watch films. The uncomfortable position of sitting leads to a pain known as I Pad shoulder. The ear bud oblivion is the deadliest disability happening to people walking or running while listening to music piped from phones or I Pads. One cannot hear the cars hooting, trains whistling and warnings shouted by others. The results can even be death. Legislation against it had to be lifted in the US. There is cause to ponder over the obverse side of these sophisticated gadgets which have otherwise caused a breakthrough in medical research.