This is not a shouted warning to all those misery-guts who want to ban firework displays, but rather an earnest warning to those of us who use a smartphone…oh, wait, that is all of us.
On an episode of Would I Lie to You that I watched recently, Jennifer Saunders said she deliberately walks into people in the street who are fixated on their phones, not looking where they are going. The audience cheered, and all were in respectful awe. Sadly, it was a Lie, but the enthusiasm with which we all had hoped it were true stuck with me.
Why oh, why can you not leave your phone alone for just a few minutes? A colleague suggested that releasing wolves into the streets would soon get people looking up from their screens. Unfortunately, I fear that action would be frowned upon. However, it is DANGEROUS to walk along looking at your phone. You might not care if you fall ass over t*t down the underground escalator, but think of the others you will take with you.
There are two big, big reasons for leaving your smartphone alone occasionally, especially when out in public.
Firstly, there is a large body of research into the increase in neck pain and spinal issues caused by constantly looking down at a screen (not to mention the double-chin development, for those of us in the vanity department). Overuse of smartphones has proven links to psychological and physical health problems, both accelerated over time. In a collection of studies of over 10,000 participants, the incidence of neck pain in particular for heavy users was more than double the incidence for those more restrained. (1) In a further study covering more than 43,000 participants, the incidence of neck pain was increased by 82%! (2)
The second reason is a personal bug-bear of mine (dear reader, I know this is all a bug-bear really). No one has the right to judge individual parents on a one-off basis; we have no idea of the background or current situation. However, dear God, when I see parents with a child in a buggy, ignoring the child in favour of some banality on TikTok and leaving the child to gaze around without human stimulation, it makes me challenge my own stance on interfering. You may ardently disagree with me on this, but what sort of adults are we preparing for the world?
You may be wondering what this has to do with the world of property. Quite a lot, as somebody owns that escalator, that pillar, and insures them, and has to deal with the fallout (all pun intended) when a person in a trance goes tumbling. We work hard to lure people back to the office, only for them to sit in meetings staring at their laps. If wellbeing is part of the workplace offer, posture and screen habits deserve a seat at the table, looking up, of course.
So, there it is, my latest blood-boiling outburst. Imperil your neck, spine, child, and innocent bystanders if you must, but stay out of my rampaging path.
1 Association of smartphone overuse and neck pain: a systematic review and meta-analysis (Chen et al, 2025)
2 BMC Public Health Systematic Review (2025)