Age: Unknown, but we just heard about it yesterday.

Appearance: Misaligned.

WTF? R ppl txting with thr necks now? No, fool. "Text neck" refers to a straining of the cervical vertebrae and ligaments caused by too much time spent hunched over your smartphones and laptops, which essentially reverses the natural curvature of said body part.

So you get a sore neck. That's a risk surely worth taking to bring the cyperpopulace breaking news of my new book/kitten/bowel movement in 140 characters or fewer. It also gives you headaches and shoulder, arm and wrist pain that may lead to arthritis.

Oh, woe! First it was eyestrain, then it was RSI of the thumbs and now this! Will humanity's struggle with digital manipulation never end? Not unless we evolve smaller heads or thicker necks.

I see now that the attempt to hold that 8lb monstrosity out over a glowing screen on such a slender stem is a slightly misguided one. Actually, it's even worse – the human head weighs between 10-12lb.

What!? That kid in Jerry Maguire lied to us? This is turning out to be a very bad day indeed. I'm sorry.

What can I do to lessen the physical if not emotional damage wrought upon me by this news? Sit up straight, hold your phone higher when you type, take frequent breaks and do a few shoulder rotations every now and then. And tie yourself to a broom handle running from bum to brain every morning.

Is that really what the British Chiropractic Association recommends? All but the last bit, yes. That came from @theSocietyforthe Promulgationof BroomHandlesasGiantSplints when I tweeted for help with this article.

Well, I'll try my best but if it looks like delaying my dissemination of this hilarious clip of a panda sneezing all over a cat that looks like Hitler, I'm afraid all bets are off. That's only fair.

Do say: "I shall undertake basic prophylactic procedures against this modern curse and hope to avoid its deleterious effects."

Don't say: Anything with emoticons, asterisks or no vowels without a qualified osteopath on standby.