The next time you reach for your phone, remember that it induces slouching, and slouching changes your mood, your memory and even your behaviour.

The average head weighs about 10 to 12 pounds. When we bend our necks forward 60 degrees, as we do to use our cellphones, the effective stress on our neck increases to 60 pounds — the weight of about five gallons of paint. What appears to be happening is that young people are developing postures similar to little old ladies with osteoporosis –  all bent over.

Studies have shown that depressed patients were more likely to stand with their necks bent forward, shoulders collapsed and arms drawn in toward the body.  Further research suggest that posture doesn’t just reflect our emotional states; it can also cause them. Compared with upright sitters, slouchers reported significantly lower self-esteem and mood, and much greater fear.

Slouching can also affect our memory and our productivity.  In  a 2009 study of Japanese schoolchildren, those who were trained to sit with upright posture were more productive than their classmates in writing assignments.  Some people think that the slouchy, collapsed position we take when using our phones actually makes us less assertive, and that there appears to be a linear relationship between the size of your i- phone, i- pad, laptop or desktop, and the extent to which it affects you: the smaller the device, the more you must contract your body to use it, and the more shrunken and inward your posture, the more submissive you are likely to become.

.Here are some tips to counter the problem: Keep your head up and shoulders back when looking at your phone, even if that means holding it at eye level. You can also try stretching and massaging the two muscle groups that are involved in hunching – those between the shoulder blades and the ones along the sides of the neck. This helps reduce scarring and restores elasticity.   (based on a review of a book by Amy Cuddy is a professor at Harvard Business School, “Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges.”)

My wife and I were dining in a restaurant recently.  Next to us was a table with six young Arab women.  Every single one of them had her head down looking at a cellphone during the whole meal.  They hardly spoke a word to one another, just what I took to be the odd comment on what was on their screens.  I don’t have a cellphone myself and have nothing against them – except if they monopolise her time and damage her health.