Dangers of Modern Life: #Selfie Addiction and WhatsAppitis

Selfie
Not a comfortable #selfie

Selfie addiction and bilateral extensor pollicis longus tendinitis of the thumb – WhatsAppitis – are just two medical conditions reported in mobile users in the past week alone.

Teenager Danny Bowman, who suffers from OCD and Body Dismorphia, spent up to 10 hours a day taking selfies, an addiction that nearly drove him to take his own life. He appeared on This Morning to highlight the pressure put on young people by the media and the issues that access to this kind of technology can bring. Bowman was taking up to 200 selfies a day.

The Lancet medical journal meanwhile reports that a 34-year-old woman was admitted to hospital after a six hour session of WhatsApp messaging on Christmas Day.  She was given non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and was advised to observe complete abstinence from using the phone to send messages – advice she had already ignored by New Year.

Her diagnosis was bilateral extensor pollicis longus tendinitis of the thumb, caused by too much WhatsApp, not unlike conditions like the 1990s Nintendinitis. Doctors much now be aware of the growing potential of conditions like tenosynovitis, injury of the tendons, caused by texting.