Teens are growing horns now, which makes a kind of logical sense if you’ve ever spent time with a teenager.

While unregulated hormones would have been my first guess, David Shahar and Mark Sayers, two health science researchers from Australia’s University of the Sunshine Coast, say that the horns are linked to a forward-and-down head posture, and one possible cause is cellphone and tablet use.

The horns are located at the base of the skull, and are bits of bone (enthesophytes) that grow due to some combination of chemical, genetic, environmental, or use factors.

Here’s VICE.

Their research from 2016 claims that in a group of 218 18 to 30-year-olds, 41 percent of them had small enthesophytes at the base of their skulls.

In 2018, the researchers examined four 13 to 16-year-old boys with enthesophytes and found that they didn’t have known genetic markers linked to the development of bony appendages.

While the researchers don’t mention smartphones at all in their 2018 research, they do make a statement in the discussion section of their 2016 paper.

They make an educated guess that the prevalence of enthesophytes may have to do with “the increased use of hand-held technologies from early child-hood.”

Naturally, the internet is in a panic, even though the bones aren’t life-threatening.

The researchers are actually attributing the bone growth to bad posture, which can then reasonably be attributed in part to device use, amongst other things.

So in conclusion, bad posture gives you horns, but there’s no need to panic.

Take that as your Friday reminder to work that core and sit up straight.

[source:vice]