Featured Image Credit: TollFreeForwarding.com
Topics: Technology
Emma Guinness
Technology rules a lot of our lives these days, and as you've probably learned yourself, it can have a negative effect on your posture.
Now, a designer has imagined what 'future humans' might look like due to the effects of technology on our bodies, and trust us when we say it's not pretty.
A 3D designer created the model for phone company TollFreeForwarding.com based on research about how technology can impact our bodies.
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Let's make it clear from the get go that no scientists are seriously suggesting humans could evolve to look like this - but it nevertheless makes for interesting reading.
The 'future human' - who the designer dubbed Mindy - has a severe hunchback as a result of straining in front of screens too much, hands that are clawed from holding phones and even a second eyelid.
Caleb Backe, a health and wellness expert at Maple Holistics, said in a statement about Mindy: "Spending hours looking down at your phone strains your neck and throws your spine off balance. Consequently, the muscles in your neck have to expend extra effort to support your head.
"Sitting in front of the computer at the office for hours on end also means that your torso is pulled out in front of your hips rather than being stacked straight and aligned."
It turns out that the situation reflected in Mindy's hand is based on a real condition and it's what's known as 'text claw', or cubital tunnel syndrome.
Dr. Nikola Djordjevic of Med Alert Help said: "A few years ago, mobile internet usage surpassed desktop, and we now hold the internet in our hands.
"However, the way we hold our phones can cause strain in certain points of contact - causing 'text claw,' which is known as cubital tunnel syndrome."
Some of Mindy's attributes are based on pretty dubious scientific claims.
She has a thicker skull to protect her from 'radiofrequency radiation' which the press release suggests could cause cancer, despite Cancer Research UK writing: "Mobile phones do not increase the risk of cancer. And there aren't any good explanations for how mobile phones could cause cancer."
Mindy also has a smaller brain based on findings that human brain size has decreased over time. The press release claims humans 'have to do so much less to survive', and therefore people with larger brains are no longer favoured by natural selection.
However, scientists have highlighted this decrease in brain size has been going on for around 10,000 to 20,000 years and therefore has nothing to with technology, with Professor Michael A. Hofman telling Metro that there is 'absolutely no scientific evidence that the modern human brain has been getting smaller during the last centuries'.
As for the extra eyelid, this is apparently in response to us being exposed to increased amount of harmful light from screens.
However, Dr David Ramsey writes in a blog for Harvard Medical School that 'the amount of blue light from electronic devices, including smartphones, tablets, LCD TVs, and laptop computers, is not harmful to the retina or any other part of the eye'.
So don't be too concerned - the chances humans will end up looking like Mindy are pretty much non-existent.