Chiropractors are warning about the new malady of "text neck," what you get from craning your cranium too much and too often in the direction of your cell phone or similar device.

Cell phones are useful, of course, but also over-used. They are the cigarettes of our time, a handy way to look busy and cool while achieving essentially nothing. In an elevator or escalator they are a prop, something to take your embarrassed boredom away from the moment and project it elsewhere--the eternal cyber-consciousness where everything is more interesting than whatever is happening wherever one happens to be.

Remember Bogey dragging on a smoke while waiting for gangster to show up, or the image of a famous writer at his typewriter (a pre-computer device once upon a time employed for text development), tapping ponderously on his cig between taps on his keyboard? Can't smoke like that any more. Smoking conveys anxiety now, not coolness. But, except in church or a meeting with your immediate boss, feel free to text away or even to sprint out of a meeting to take a cell phone call. Maybe it's a message from your chiropractor.