Horns are growing on young people’s skulls, possibly due to phone use | Hacker News Reader

Horns are growing on young people’s skulls, possibly due to phone use

washingtonpost.com

19 pointscs7029 comments

I’ve always known that so-called “smartphones” are instruments of the devil. Anything containing such immoral temptations is a blight on the world and now we have a whole generation of horned satan-spawn as a result.

This is why I only check hacker news on a desktop pc.

I hope you're using TempleOS and not some satanic operating system

I wish they didn't use the word "horns" because this is probably going to cause some Christians to freak out.

I also wish they didn't use horns, but not for the same reason. My main objection is that this looks to be an elongation of the external occipital protuberance, which is a part of every normal human skull. So kids aren't "developing horns," instead their bodies are adapting to the stresses involved with looking down for hours on end.

Also, this isn't a bad thing, it's how our bodies work. Kids who do gymnastics or swim a lot have bodies that develop differently in response to those stresses.

> this looks to be an elongation of the external occipital protuberance

Good call, that's exactly what they are. They buried all the actual science at the end of the article.

"The effect — known as enlarged external occipital protuberance — used to be so uncommon, Sayers said, that one of its early observers, toward the end of the 19th century, objected to its title, arguing that there was no real protrusion."

> arguing that there was no real protrusion."

I guess we found a technological solution to this problem.

So this is a physical reaction to changes in musculoskeletal habits which result in muscular, bone and ligament change in response as phone usage alters the position of the skull which induces new stresses the body adapts to.

I could be worse. At least it’s not a response to radiation.

"It could be worse."

Yes, it always could be:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AFf0ysgNiM

Is this being posted to Hacker News so we can laugh at it? Are we that much in need of entertainment?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com