Smartphones could be the culprit behind the increase in head lice

Oh those pesky head lice. All that scratching, itching and lengthy periods of time spent getting rid of them has aggrivated most of us.

There are various things parents do to try and avoid head lice as though it were the plague – for us ladies it often meant mum would style our hair in an up do for our entire lives at primary school. To this day I feel it contributed to my large forehead. However, a recent study has given us that bit more insight into the extremely common condition that continues to pester schoolchildren and their parents. A study that was released at the British Association of Dermatologists’ Annual Conference in Liverpool found that kids who owned a smartphone or tablet, and who took regular ‘selfies’ had a higher incidence of head lice than those that did not possess such devices. Fifty-one percent of the children who were analysed owned a smartphone or tablet and 40.5 percent of them were using it for taking ‘selfies’. Out of those that used the devices, 62 percent experienced head lice, while only 29.5 percent of children managed to get headlice out of the group that did not own a mobile or tablet device. Matthew Gass of the British Association of Dermatologists said,

“We’re not saying that smartphones are causing children to get head lice, but that there is a link, so if there’s an outbreak at home or at school, consider how electronic devices might cause children to congregate allowing head lice to spread.”

Another researcher, Dr Tess McPherson of Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said,

“Compared to previous estimates of head lice incidence, our figures were much higher, showing that almost half of children have had them in the last five years, which may not come as a surprise to parents.”