On the 24th March I’ll be hosting a webinar with University of Salford and our project lead Anna Clark to discuss the results from our initial survey on musculoskeletal impacts in young people from phone and tablet use.

Leading up to the 24th March I wanted to give you some further context about why we’re holding this webinar.

You see, we’ve been banging this drum for a while now and there’s a bit of a history to it.

Back in 2013, we launched our Ergonomics 4 Kids campaign that went on to teach hundreds of parents, teachers, children and business leaders about the ‘time bomb’ of musculoskeletal issues posed by continued and long-term device use.

We created some great resources for you to use, free-of-charge at:

UK: www.ergonomics4kids.com

US: www.ergo4students.com

The campaign featured in HuffPost, The Telegraph, and filtered through to numerous blogs and industry trade sites.

As we noted back then two thirds of primary school children reported experiencing back or neck pain over the course of the year.

In fact, the number of children receiving treatment for back or neck pain had doubled in six months.

There was growing concern from the medical community. We had failed to understand the effects of excessive computer and device use on young people’s developing bodies.

As I commented in 2013, “It cannot be right that we work so hard to protect the working population but fail to recognise the impact technology has on children at a critical stage of their physiological development.”

Our research with University of Salford will aim to provide robust data about the true impact of technology on young people. The first part of research has now concluded and the data is available. Tune in to the webinar to find out…