Introduction and Background: Smartphone is one of the dynamic trends in communication, in which one’s mobile phone can be used for communication through email, exploring internet & using certain apps. In recent years, the usage of mobile phones has increased so much in young adults (mainly students). Many users of smart phone look sharply downwards & hold their arms in front of them to read the screens which make their head move forward & cause excessive anterior curve in the lower cervical vertebrae and excessive posterior curve in the upper thoracic vertebrae to maintain the balance which put lots of stress on the cervical spine and the neck muscles. Forward head posture is most commonly seen poor posture in sagittal plane. There is increasing incidence of the musculoskeletal problems of neck around the world due to excessive use of mobile phone and electronic devices. Method: Total 100 healthy students (both male and females) who use smart phones were selected by convenience sampling method from Amity university, noida, with age group of 18–25 years. General assessment of the students was performed to shortlist the students meeting the inclusion criteria, all the students who met the inclusion criteria were invited to participate in this study. A written informed consent was provided to each student prior to the study. They were asked to fill a smart phone addiction scale (SAS), neck disability index (NDI) and posture of neck was measured using ruler method. Karl pearson’s coefficient of correlation was used to correlate between the SAS and NDI and SAS and TWDn-TWDc. Results: The karl pearson’s coefficient of correlation showed a significant correlation between SAS and NDI (r=0.68, p<0.05) but no correlation between SAS and forward head posture (-0.13, p>0.05). Conclusion: The study suggested that there is a significant relation between smart phone usage and neck pain but no significant relation between smart phone usage and forward head posture. But forward head posture can develop later as degenerative process must have started which is leading to pain in the neck.

Keywords: Smart phone addiction; Neck pain; Forward head posture; Musculoskeletal disorders.