6 ms·

I've seen mobile phone users as distinctly different mentally, microwaving your brain all day can't be good, despite all these mental gymnastics about "non-io

I've seen mobile phone users as distinctly different mentally, microwaving your brain all day can't be good, despite all these mental gymnastics about "non-ionizing radiation". I see this as 20th century shoe fitters using X-rays liberally, then discovering that X-rays aren't that good for you and cause cancer.

mhh__ 4y ago
Shoe fitters never fitted shoes every few minutes. The sheer amount of people with likely no symptoms (i.e. people are looking for them, where are they) means that the harm per unit of exposure must be absolutely tiny.
dehrmann 4y ago
It's not mental gymnastics at all. Numerous studies have failed to show a link between cell phone use and cancer, and the mechanism by which x-rays cause cancer doesn't work with higher-wavelength light. It just doesn't have enough energy to damage DNA. The obvious example is that UV is ionizing, but visible light is non-ionizing. Spend an hour in a tanning bed and there's obvious skin damage. Spend a day under office lights and there isn't.
- ornornor 4y ago
  > office lights Not to contradict your point but rater as a “did you know?”: typical office neon lights actually also emit UV and it can be a problem for artwork that hasn’t been framed using UV filtering glass as they turn this washed out blue shade over time as a result. I don’t think it damages skin anywhere near as much as actual sun rays but I was surprised to learn it anyway.
- Findecanor 4y ago
  It is difficult to conduct a decent statistical study of cell phone radiation and health effects when there is practically no control group to compare with, and when society and technology changes faster than cancer develops. Several years ago, I read a study that had done animal testing to find that there could be a link between cell phone-type radiation and a weakened immune response against cancer. (all rats had cancer, but the radiated rats were worse off) But since then I have not seen any follow-up. The field is ... tainted, because of all the charlatans at the fringe. It is difficult to get funding for a serious study, and if you do conduct a study, people will not look at you with a mild eye no matter what: it could be a career-killer.
georgia_peach 4y ago
Smartphones & social media, hand-in-glove... microwaved brains would be a very tidy explanation.
userbinator 4y ago
It's important to remember that RF communication is over a century old by now. If there was any significant statistical effect beyond RF burns (heat), we would've seen it already.
- rleigh 4y ago
  That's a big assumption to make. Over the previous two centuries, there have been ongoing rapid changes to our home, work and other environments, the way we live and the products we consume and are exposed to. As a result, the number of confounding factors may mask any deleterious effects of RF at a population level. RF is clearly not acutely harmful at normally experienced levels. But are there lesser morbidities or long-term cancer risks which are directly due to RF, but are currently lost in the noise? We might not have seen it already, but it is worth questioning the basic assumption that it's completely safe, and identifying how, why and when it could cause harm.
  - rini17 4y ago
    This. Plus RF emitters are widely used in direct vicinity of brain for 30 years max, while their frequencies changed during that time from 400MHz to 5GHz.

mhh__ 4y ago

Shoe fitters never fitted shoes every few minutes. The sheer amount of people with likely no symptoms (i.e. people are looking for them, where are they) means that the harm per unit of exposure must be absolutely tiny.

dehrmann 4y ago

It's not mental gymnastics at all. Numerous studies have failed to show a link between cell phone use and cancer, and the mechanism by which x-rays cause cancer doesn't work with higher-wavelength light. It just doesn't have enough energy to damage DNA. The obvious example is that UV is ionizing, but visible light is non-ionizing. Spend an hour in a tanning bed and there's obvious skin damage. Spend a day under office lights and there isn't.

ornornor 4y ago
> office lights Not to contradict your point but rater as a “did you know?”: typical office neon lights actually also emit UV and it can be a problem for artwork that hasn’t been framed using UV filtering glass as they turn this washed out blue shade over time as a result. I don’t think it damages skin anywhere near as much as actual sun rays but I was surprised to learn it anyway.
Findecanor 4y ago
It is difficult to conduct a decent statistical study of cell phone radiation and health effects when there is practically no control group to compare with, and when society and technology changes faster than cancer develops. Several years ago, I read a study that had done animal testing to find that there could be a link between cell phone-type radiation and a weakened immune response against cancer. (all rats had cancer, but the radiated rats were worse off) But since then I have not seen any follow-up. The field is ... tainted, because of all the charlatans at the fringe. It is difficult to get funding for a serious study, and if you do conduct a study, people will not look at you with a mild eye no matter what: it could be a career-killer.

georgia_peach 4y ago

Smartphones & social media, hand-in-glove... microwaved brains would be a very tidy explanation.

userbinator 4y ago

It's important to remember that RF communication is over a century old by now. If there was any significant statistical effect beyond RF burns (heat), we would've seen it already.

rleigh 4y ago
That's a big assumption to make. Over the previous two centuries, there have been ongoing rapid changes to our home, work and other environments, the way we live and the products we consume and are exposed to. As a result, the number of confounding factors may mask any deleterious effects of RF at a population level. RF is clearly not acutely harmful at normally experienced levels. But are there lesser morbidities or long-term cancer risks which are directly due to RF, but are currently lost in the noise? We might not have seen it already, but it is worth questioning the basic assumption that it's completely safe, and identifying how, why and when it could cause harm.
- rini17 4y ago
  This. Plus RF emitters are widely used in direct vicinity of brain for 30 years max, while their frequencies changed during that time from 400MHz to 5GHz.