A tough call for mobile-phone users
IT seems mobile phones may be bad for your health, after all. Forget unproven claims that mobiles slowly fry your brain with small but concentrated doses of radiation. Ignore the risks of crossing busy roads while text-messaging your lover to say you'll be home for dinner.
The new warning is simple: watch your back. Studies in Australia suggest that walking while talking can lead to spine disorders. Researchers at the University of Queensland have found that people have a natural breathing rhythm while walking that ensures the back's trunk muscles help cushion the spine from the jolt of each step. Walking and talking upsets this process. When we chat and walk, we miss natural breaths and disengage the protecting muscles.
This problem isn't new. It occurs while simply walking and talking with a friend, and dates back to the dawn of time. The trouble is that cavemen didn't have the latest Nokia. Since the advent of the mobile, we've been talking more frequently while walking.
Dr Paul Hodges and Queensland University's school of health and rehabilitation sciences studied a group of volunteers on treadmills. Some walked while talking; others gave it the heads down, silent treatment. The tests showed that those who spoke on the treadmill had much less trunk back muscle activity, exposing the spine to the jolts of each step.
'We found that the activity of the deepest abdominal muscle was reduced by 30 to 40 per cent during all speech tasks,' Dr Hodges says. 'The timing of pauses [to breathe] was constrained by the demands of speech. This compromise challenges spinal movement control - and may compromise spinal integrity.'
British Chiropractic Association expert Matthew Bennett says people should definitely be careful about walking and talking at the same time.
'People with bad backs should watch the way they bend to pick things up, shouldn't sit for too long and now, it would seem, shouldn't talk with someone they are walking with,' he says. 'This is particularly important for mobile phone users. We already know that holding a phone to your ear for long periods is bad for you, because it can increase tension across the shoulder and cause pain.'
By the end of last year, the number of mobile phone accounts in Hong Kong reached a milestone by exceeding the population for the first time.
The Office of the Telecommunications Authority says there were 6.94 million accounts at the end of October, giving Hong Kong a penetration rate of 102 per cent, second in Asia only to Taiwan.
With mobile phones becoming an intrinsic part of modern life, some say guidelines are needed on where, when and how to use a mobile phone properly. Such a guide should probably include the following: don't phone while driving (now a criminal offence in Hong Kong and many other parts of the world); don't text-message during school exams or pub quizzes (that's cheating); don't talk while walking (it could harm your back, unless you're wearing cushioned shoes); and definitely don't talk while eating (it seriously risks the prospect of anyone asking you out again).
