7 Ways Your Smartphone is Ruining Your Health

Your smartphone is more destructive than you think

Digital dependence is not a healthy habit. Look-out for the scary side effects below; they’ll make you feel much better the next time your phone battery dies. (Photo: iStock)

There’s a lot of noise about the potential risks of cell phones. Do they cause cancer? How soon will cancer be detected? Will it be sooner for teens since they are hooked on from a younger age?

Well, the cancer connect of smartphones is linked to heavy usage and it’s controversial. But the jury is out on a whole host of much weirder effects your phone could be having on you right now. For instance ...

1. It Might Kill Your Sperms

There is a well-established link between the radiation from mobiles and men’s swimmers! Yep. Your smartphone might be frying your balls. (Photo: iStock altered by The Quint)

There was a lot of back and forth on this one, till the Cleveland Clinic in US conducted a large-scale laboratory study. They concluded that for men, the ringing in their pocket might be a death knell for their sperms. The study was published in the Journal of Andrology in 2011.

So stop putting your phone near your crotch. And when you’re using a headset or an earpiece, place it on the table and not your lap. For dudes, that’s next to your nuts.

2. It Deflates Your Self-Esteem

Breaking: Everyone has more friends than you, they look gorgeous and party in stunning locales. And it’s probably not a good idea to stalk people. (Photo: iStock altered by The Quint)

Phones give people the ability to filter every part of daily life, and place the best parts in your palm. All this amounts to a constant stream of unattainable reality that makes you feel bad about living your real, unfiltered, plain life.

3. It Can Dull Your Memory

Smartphones significantly harm our lives while facilitating them. (Photo: iStock altered by The Quint)

Remember the time when you knew all your friends’s landline numbers on your finger tips? Aah, the ‘90s.

Now with the smartphone handy, there’s no reason to memorise things you know you can easily look up – like phone numbers. And when you stop memorising facts and figures, your memory starts getting a little rusty.

4. Your Phone is a Germ Hotspot

A recent study done by Harvard University found that 25% phones have trace-able fecal matter on them. Eeeeewww! (Photo: iStock altered by The Quint)

It goes with you everywhere, gets set on dirty counters, tables, dropped who-knows-where, and everything your fingers touch goes on your screen.

A 2012 Purdue University investigation found cell phones had 10 times more bacteria than a toilet seat! YIKES.

In other words, your phone is getting bombarded with germs every time it’s used. So, knowing that ... how often do you disinfect your phone? Have you ever?

Not surprising, considering no one gets off the toilet seat till they pass another level of Candy Crush!

5. It Could Be Ruining Your Children

Your child shouldn’t have to WhatsApp his neighbourhood friends from the sofa. They have door bells for that. (Photo: iStock altered by The Quint)

A large-scale study done on almost one lakh mothers and 30,000 children reveals that women who regularly expose their children to cellphone radiation, both while pregnant and after birth, are 50% more likely to have children with behavioural problems.

The sheer number of participants in this study are a hell of a lot to write-off to coincidence.

6. It Can Trigger Nomophobia

Addicted to your phone? You need an intervention. (Photo: iStock altered by The Quint)

If you have more LOLs with Siri than your BFF, then welcome to the Smartphone Addiction Club.

Nomophobia is the fear of being without your phone. You know that feeling of safety and security you get from having a fully charged phone in your hand? Nomophobia is the opposite: It can lead you to think – often irrationally, that you’re not safe without a phone in your hand.

7. It Can Give You a Text Neck

So what’s your body position while you’re reading this?

Look around you, everyone has their head down and this has doctors worried (Photo: iStock altered by The Quint)

Are you slumping in your chair or hunched over with your neck sticking out like a turtle? Chances are your neck and shoulders feel sore.

Don’t just dismiss it as everyday fatigue. Doctor’s say that 80% office-goers are complaining of a neck or back ache. And there is a name for it : Text Neck or the iPad Neck.

Doctors warn that overtime this posture will flatten out the natural curve of your neck, putting more strain on your disc. Eventually the wear and tear of the spine may affect it’s functioning and even require corrective surgery.

And while all these health issues exist, still a staggering 33% phone users would rather give up sex than give up their cellphone.

Yeah, let that sink in.