Health Benefits of Headsets

Wearing a headset is not only comfortable and convenient, it is good for your posture and, more importantly, good for your health.

Cradling a conventional handset between ear and shoulder is a major source of back and neck pain as it puts the muscles under unnatural strain and stress. Often called 'phone neck', it is a common complaint among telephone and mobile phone users.

Moreover, the problems it causes 'neck and back pain' are one of the main reasons for employees being off work through ill-health, a situation which, according to a 2006 survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, costs businesses an average of £600 per employee every year.

But studies have shown that wearing a headset, rather than using a regular telephone handset, can help alleviate these problems.

A study by the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose, California, demonstrated that using a headset can reduce muscle tension of the kind that leads to muscle strain and chronic pain by as much as 41%.

The three-month study, which was commissioned by Plantronics, involved 62 people between the ages of 20 and 63 years old. All of the participants used the telephone for a minimum of three hours a day to perform their jobs.

Using conventional telephone handsets, they undertook tests that evaluated the various levels of muscle tension resulting when they engaged in other common tasks, such as reading, note-taking and typing on a computer, at the same time as they were on the phone.

In the second stage of the research, they exchanged the handset for a headset and repeated the tasks.

The results showed that using a headset as opposed to a handset while reading something reduced muscle tension by 41%. The reduction when writing was 36.5% and when typing, 31.4%.

Medical experts have previously established that lateral bending of the neck, the position commonly assumed to hold a phone when the hands are occupied with writing or typing, is the most stressful of any neck movement. But this study was the first to produce a in-depth statistical analysis of the ergonomic benefits of headsets.

A second study, from the University of Surrey in the UK, supports these findings. Also commissioned by Plantronics, it demonstrated that using a headset brings measurable health benefits to people using the telephone for just two hours a day.

The detailed two-month study analysed the postures adopted when using the telephone. All participants regularly used the phone and computer simultaneously during their work. Each was monitored for four weeks using a traditional telephone handset and then for four weeks using a Plantronics headset.