Technophobes, look away now.
Up to 41 per cent of millennials may be developing a horn-like growth on the back of their skull, according to research published in December and recently cited by the BBC.
Two Australian researchers examined hundreds of X-rays of people aged between 18 and 30, and found that almost half had protruding bone growths usually found in elderly people who are hunched over.
The researchers, Dr David Shahar and Associate Professor Mark Sayers at the University of the Sunshine Coast, have hypothesized that the growths are due to “the weight of the head shifting forward with the use of modern technologies for long periods of time.”
The findings were initially published in December but received little coverage. A recent BBC article examining the impact of technology on the human body cited the research and has led to an explosion in interest in the work.
Dr Shahar and Professor Sayers were keen to point out that, in most cases, the bony lump was only a few millimetres long. But, said Shahar, “we found projections of 10 to 30 millimetres in the studied young population.”
But there is hope, said Dr Sayers. “The thing is that the bump is not the problem, the bump is a sign of sustained terrible posture, which can be corrected quite simply,”
