Phone addiction left woman in wheelchair; here’s how you can save yourself from digital vertigo

A social media influencer claims she developed 'digital vertigo' after spending up to 14 hours a day on her phone. Fenella Fox, 29, says she stared at her screen morning to night, addicted to Instagram which ultimately left her confined to a wheelchair. Currently, she has more than 156,000 followers on Instagram.

The British influencer started experiencing bouts of headache and neck pain during the pandemic that gradually intensified. Soon after, she started suffering dizzy spells and nausea. “I just felt like I really couldn’t walk properly, I felt really unwell. Dizzy, and kind of distorted. I can visualise it, but it’s not easy to explain.” Fox told The Mirror.

As her symptoms started to become more extreme, Fox, then living in Portugal, flew back to the UK to be looked after by her parents. “I got a taxi to the airport fine, but when I was in the airport, that’s when I was met with a wheelchair,” she said.


Fox allegedly became bedridden and struggled to walk properly, relying on a wheelchair whenever she needed to move around. Still, she was active on the phone, without realising it was the purported cause of her problems.

“I turned off my phone and threw it into the back of the cupboard or gave it to my parents and was like, ‘Please do not let me on this.’ Then I was able to walk again,” she claims.

Here are some of the symptoms of digital vertigo or Cybersickness and how you can safeguard yourself, according to experts:

Cybersickness occurs when your brain receives messages that you’re moving — for instance, by a flashing screen where your visual-vestibular conflict to think that you are moving.

The phenomena are akin to motion sickness that results in very real feelings of nausea, bleariness, dizziness, and migraines.

• Limit your screen time as much as possible
• remind your body where it is in space by getting up and walking frequently
• To minimize eye strain, follow the 20-20-20 rule. Take a break from your screen every 20 minutes and look into the distance 20 feet or further for 20 seconds.
• Reduce your blue light exposure wherever possible