Introduction:

More people are now communicating using text over mobile telephone lines (CT), which has led to a worldwide epidemic of musculoskeletal manifestations due to inadequate body positions, especially of the cervical spine.

Objective:

To describe the observations in 124 cases of cervicalgia caused by the use of CT.

Material and methods:

Patients with non-traumatic cervicalgia in whom different etiological possibilities were excluded.

Results:

124 patients with a mean age of 25 years and SD ± 11.5, range from 15 to 40; with predominance of the female gender, in 70% (n = 87), and ages between 15 and 25 years, in 75% of the cases (n = 93). The evolution time of the cervicalgia was an average of six months, with a variation of three to 12. The use/hours/day of CT was: 50% (n = 62) ≥ four hours, 25% (n = 31) three hours; 15.3% (n = 19) two hours, and 9.6% (n = 12) one hour. The correlation between age and CT time use showed that the younger the age, the longer the time of use.

Conclusions:

The abuse of CTs has caused an epidemic of cervicalgia, forcing the physician to include these new data in the clinical history.