As discovered first-hand by an unnamed German man, hardcore virtual reality gaming can be detrimental to one’s health. No, we’re not talking about the risk of experiencing a painful headache or motion sickness—we’re talking about broken bones and weeks of recovery.
Indeed, the unfortunate German gamer has, according to The Sun, fractured his C7 neck vertebra, the largest and most inferior vertebra in the neck region, whose job is to bear the primary load from the weight of the head.
What’s even more curious about the incident is the fact that the fracture wasn’t caused by a sudden encounter with the floor or a heavy piece of furniture. Doctors from the University of Leipzig Hospital, where the gamer was presented with his injury, believe the fracture occurred due to repeated stress.
Stress fractures are caused by repetitive force, and they typically result in small cracks. Such fractures are often sustained by track and field athletes, volleyball players, and weightlifters.
“Since the patient had been playing VR games for many hours weekly with lightweight devices in his hands and on his head, we conclude that a stress-type fracture seems to be the more likely reason for the dislocated fracture of the spinous process from the seventh cervical vertebra,” said Dr David Baur, an orthopedics and trauma specialist at the University of Leipzig Hospital.
The most popular VR headset today, the Meta Quest 2, weighs a little over 500 grams (1.1 pounds), and there’s no shortage of online threads where players complain about the headset causing neck pain after long use.
For more information about the injury, you can read the original case report, which was published in the Journal of Medical Case Reports on 31 May 2021.
