Articles & Studies
A Bad Mix - Cell Phones and Children?
Do you remember a time when most people on the roads just drove their car? Let me be more explicit. Do you remember a time when the main activities drivers engaged in were talking to a passenger, singing, and eating or drinking something?
Today it’s not often that I simply see someone driving; a good third or so of the people are talking on their cell phones. Now I realize that my percentage is far from accurate data but the fact that a large number of people talk (via cell) and drive is common knowledge.
Of course the prominence of cell phones goes beyond the streets. You can find cell phones attached to ears everywhere. Little is sacred now; once that little phone rings a quick “excuse me” is the standard protocol. Sometimes I wonder if society is addicted; after all, people seem to take their phones everywhere, even when they are in the company of others. I see it when I walk my son around the neighborhood, other walkers and their cell phones. I’ve been out to eat with acquaintances that interrupt our dinner for their daily touch-base with their aunt. I’ve even accidentally responded to strangers in the grocery store who were looking my way, saying something, yet talking on those headset devices.
The good news for our cell-crazed culture is that a German study recently announced that their decade’s long study found that cell phones were safe for adults. Of course there were caveats: they cannot make conclusions based on more than 10 years of cell phone usage and some cellular activity did change while being “under the influence” of mobile/cell phone radiation. (According to the article, even this information did not dissuade the survey from concluding that cell phones were safe.)
So, the good news is that, as of now, we can continue being a country obsessed with cell phones.
I think it’s important to note though that the study could not make any safety statements regarding children and cell phone usage. Therefore, since there is not evidence one way or another they suggest that children do not use mobile phones.
Although most kids probably aren’t concerned about how healthy it is to use cell phones, as their parents, we have to be. And since having a cell phone is starting to become “the thing” at earlier and earlier ages, we need to pay extra attention to future studies that focus on this population and cell phone exposure. It may just be that we have to tone down our usage of cell phones in order to keep our kids from becoming too eager to start acting like adults at the expense of their health. The question is: could we do it?
Reference
Tuffs, A. (2008). Mobile phones do not pose health risk, German survey shows. BMJ, 336(7659), 1461-1461. DOI: 10.1136/bmj.a545
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5 Comments
There are several tests that can be done to show that cell phone radiation exposure causes adverse biological effects. You can see some of them here:
http://www.cellphone-health.com
The question is how many repeated exposures does one have to endure before these effects translate into a visible and deadly disease. Just because one doesn’t develop brain cancer doesn’t mean that the cell phone radiation is not affecting him or her in some way. There are many people who suffer headaches, nausea, rash and other symptoms when exposed to microwave/radio frequencies.
And, yes, children are more susceptible because their developing skulls are penetrated more deeply. Their central nervous sytem, immune sytem, and critical organs have not developed and matured sufficiently to withstand environmental toxins for long.
Dr. Naseem Qureshi
Cell phones should be used by children only when they have some emergency and want to contact their parents or so. Other uses children should understand are of no value but associated with adverse effects in particular if used for a long time in one go.
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Can’t agree with you more! Just heard reviews on the news about cellular phone safety and children and the report was that children who used cell phones were at risk for cancer. I can’t recall the study that was done but as parents, we have to control the cell phone usage of our children.