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Get a Gaming Chair For Your Office. Your Back Will Thank You.

They might look ridiculous, but the gamers are onto something

Angela Lashbrook
OneZero
Published in
6 min readOct 9, 2019

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An illustration of a character sitting in a gaming chair, in front of a vortex of regular office chairs.
Illustration: Jess Ebsworth

It sometimes feels as if our desk chairs are trying to kill us.

Many of us fidget in a perpetual state of discomfort, trying to find that one ever-elusive position in which our back won’t eventually cry out in fury. According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, as many as 80% of Americans experience back pain at some point in their lives, and nearly a quarter of Americans experienced back pain within the past three weeks. Back pain from unhealthy sitting can even lead to disc degeneration, poor blood pressure, and pinched nerves.

Given that many American adults spend more than six hours a day on their butt, it’s reasonable to expect that buying a fancy chair will alleviate at least some of this misery. Gamers, who are particularly accustomed to sitting and its attendant problems, swear by gaming chairs, a new breed of throne, modeled after race car seats and theoretically designed with long-term sitting in mind. The famous (and problematic) gaming YouTuber PewDiePie even designed his own for the gaming chair brand Clutch Chairz.

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Angela Lashbrook
OneZero

I’m a columnist for OneZero, where I write about the intersection of health & tech. Also seen at Elemental, The Atlantic, VICE, and Vox. Brooklyn, NY.