Could Radiation From Our Mobile Devices Kill Us? The Untold Truth About Cell Phone Radiation

Hey there guys,@blessing97 here! In the month of December 2014, statistical data and reports from the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association showed that they were over 327.5million cell phone users in the United States alone. But recent data has proven that more than 5billion persons earthwide are mobile phone subscribers! And for good reason too.

The Good and Darkside of Mobile Tech

C'mon, let's face it. Gone are the days when to see our dear loved ones we had to travel long distances on foot or by road, or perhaps even by horses and chariots for those of us like @mobbs and @lemouth who are from ancient civilizations and have thus lived way longer than others here on earth.

Another alternative which really sucked was the use of hand written letters to keep an open line of communication with our friends and family who lived far away from us. These letters could take days or worse still even months to get to the intended recipients. Sometimes it could even get missing or damaged along the way, as it was only a piece of paper afterall. Thus, maintaining frequent or constant communication with persons far away back then was really a pain in the butt, as it required a lot of effort to do so.

Now fast forward many years from back then into the future, which is our present day world today. Now with the aid of a superb and amazing invention called a cell phone, you can communicate seamlessly with anyone who lives anywhere in the world today, be it via a phone call or a simple text message, which in most cases takes from just a few seconds to a couple of minutes to send and receive. Awesome right?

Why A Major Cause For Concern?

Many persons today are now "social media crazy", as now their world and lives seem to revolve almost entirely around social media sites such as facebook, twitter, instagram and all that stuff. Still all thanks to the invention of mobile phones.

Let me ask you a simple question though. Do you think you could potentially do without your phone for a single day? Okay, you said yes. Okay how about for a week then? If your answer still remains yes then I don't care, still keep on reading anyway. But if your answer is no, I understand that you really do love your phone and it means a lot to you. But on a second thought, don't you think you should be a bit concerned as to the amount of time you currently spend with your mobile device? "Why should I be concerned?" you may ask. Okay, I'll tell you why.

You should be concerned for a couple of good reasons, but I'll stick to just one of them for now. So what reason could be so important you may ask?

Well it is certainly and most definitely "no new news" that mobile devices produce or emit a certain level or amount of electromagnetic radiation in the form of radio and microwaves. And usually in the range of 800MHz to 2600MHz depending on the country you live in and also the network provider in question.

Although the word radiation may sound scary in itself, as whenever it is made mention of our minds quickly start to remember all the bad and scary stuff like cancer and DNA damage. But the reality is that radiation just actually refers to all the various types and forms of electromagnetic waves. Some of which include; visible light, x-rays and several other waves, all which have a place in the electromagnetic spectrum.
The electromagnetic spectrum is further divided into two parts or sections; The IONIZING and NON-IONIZING radiation.

The ionizing radiation which consists of electromagnetic waves such as x-rays, gamma rays and even UV have the ability to "ionize" or knock-off electrons from their respective atoms or molecules. Thus they have the ability to break off or "dissociate" chemical bonds. They can do this because they possess enough PHOTON ENERGY.

^{The electromagnetic spectrum highlighting the Ionizing and non-ionzing radiations. Image courtesy:wikicommons-Image by Glenna Shields under the public domain license}

In other words, we can say "ionizing radiation" is the bad guy which causes cancer, DNA damage and the rest of all those nasty stuff you see in the movies. Therefore, you wouldn't want your electrons knocked off or ionized. Trust me on this!

To put things into perspective, it is the major reason why you wear a lead vest when going for an x-ray examination. And although they cannot all be completely avoided, as for example your traveling bags would always be scanned with x-ray scanners by airport security, and then when you finally get on board the plane, you still would be exposed to low or somewhat minuscule amounts of cosmic radiation during the flight. The point however is, you should endeavor as much as possible to stay away from ionizing radiations or their sources.

However, on the other hand, non-ionizing radiation is not harmful in little amounts and is comprised of a great percentage of the light we're frequently exposed to, such as; visible light from light bulbs at home, or even infrared light from people around us.

Non-ionizing radiation, unlike ionizing radiation does not posses enough photon energy to ionize electrons from atoms and molecules or to cause the dissociation of chemical bonds. Photon energy by the way is simply the amount of energy possessed by a photon of light, and also a photon is simply a small "quantized" packet of light.

Thus our human body is able to tolerate little doses of this form of electromagnetic radiation. Although in extremely large amounts or dosage, non-ionizing radiation could also cause some really serious damage.
So obviously, the electromagnetic radiation emitted by our mobile phones falls under the non-ionizing category. Thank goodness, or we'll all be walking zombies or probably dead by now.

Microwaves which we use to heat up food, uses a high power radiation which is approximately between 600 to 1000watts of power, although usually at about 700watts. On the other hand, our mobile phones only emit about 0.02watts of power during minimal operation. And which can go to a maximum value of about 2 watts during a call. This is indeed a far cry from the relatively high level power emission of microwaves which operate at a frequency of about 2450MHz, which is almost the same frequency of operation of our Wifi.

This means if indeed cell phones were that harmful to our body cells and tissues, it would continuously boil the water in our bodies just like a microwave. But obviously, this isn't the case today.

The Final Verdict

So therefore, with all said and done, does that mean we're very safe and there's absolutely no need for me to continue with my rants? Well, the answer is both yes and no. Why yes and no at the same time you may ask? Okay, once again allow me to tell you why.

My first answer is yes because, various scientific studies over the years have not really been able to pinpoint or establish any precise and definite link or relationship between the health problems such as cancer which everyone is really scared of, and the electromagnetic radiation or radio frequencies associated with our mobile phones. In other words, the inference from these research works have been inconclusive, although the findings seem to tilt towards the fact that we're indeed at liberty to use our phones as freely and as frequently as we like.

Also, the reason why I still answered no is because just like I earlier mentioned, the research results are still inconclusive and thus not totally reliable. Meaning, much work still needs to be done in this regard.

In fact, in the year 2011, a review was published by the World Health Organization's Agency for Research on Cancer which stated that cell-phone radiation is "probably carcinogenic", with obviously a lot of emphasis on the word "possibly"^(source). But still this information really shouldn't be taken too lightly.

Although generally, a lot of researchers and scientists are still unconvinced as to how much negative threat is actually posed by our phones, in my own personal opinion, I would say the best option is to play safe. Meaning, don't throw your phones away, but don't abuse their usage either. Wisdom should be applied with regards to the amount of time spent using these handheld gadgets. Afterall, it is often said that it is better to be safe than sorry.

With special regards to what I just said, you might want to checkout the guidelines published by the California Department of Public Health as it gives a detailed list of do's and don'ts if we want to actually "play safe" and thus minimize our exposure to electromagnetic radiation from our mobile devices.

The guide recommends some really cool stuff, like keeping our phones away from our bodies when not in use, and also keeping them far away from the bed before going to bed. Be sure to check it out here!

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So that's it folks!Thanks a lot for taking the time out to read this! I really do hope you were able to gain a thing or two, and please do feel free to comment your thoughts and opinions in the comment section below. Once again, THANKS!

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Article References:

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