Association of Upper Extremity Pain with the Duration Spent on the Smartphone: A Cross Sectional Survey

The goal of this research was to look into the relationship between smartphone use and musculoskeletal discomfort among the youth of Karachi. We hypothesized that the amount of time participants spent on their smartphones might be associated with increases in musculoskeletal pain of upper extremity. A cross-sectional study observational survey was conducted on all smartphone users between the ages of 18 and 35. A total of 400 samples were randomly selected from various parts of Karachi. The data was collected between February and March utilizing Google forms as a web -based questionnaire. The questions in the study included excessive smartphone use on day to day basis that was causing referred discomfort in the upper extremities in the previous 30 days. Our findings indicate that as time spent on the smartphone increases, so do problems with the upper extremity's musculoskeletal system. Excessive smartphone use causes muscle fatigue and joint pain from the fingers to the neck, which is proportional to the amount of time spent on the device. The duration of smartphone ancillary function use was found to be related to the relationship between smartphone use and musculoskeletal discomfort in this study. Headache and hearing discomfort were found to increase in participants with increasing time, but this was not statistically significant.