In this day and age everyone has a cellphone.  We all text, call, facetime, and do everything else our phones have to offer.  They have integrated themselves into every aspect of our lives, even in class. The average person touches/checks their phone one million times a year, or 2,617 times a day.  We make calls, send texts, and send tweets without a second thought, but could it be slowly killing us?  New studies show that this might be true.

There have been several different studies on humans and rats, both drawing different conclusions.  The human study showed no growth in cancer or tumors in the time of the study, but the it was only performed over two years. Also several different types of bias were found in their data.  They found people overestimated, underestimated, and flat out lied about their true cell phone exposure.  The studies on rats have drawn different conclusions.  The early study showed no increase in tumors after exposure to the RF-EMF (the radiation put off by your cellphone).  The rats were either exposed to a high amount for short periods of time or lower amounts for long periods of time.  The next study exposed the rats to high amounts for long periods of time (9 hours a day).  This study had significant evidence that the exposure did indeed cause cancer.  There was a 3-4% change, which wouldn’t usually be that scientifically significant, but because of the rarity of the tumors, it is.

Like we have learned in class, correlation does not equal causality.  I have found this to be much like the smoking issue.  We simply do not know if cancer and phones are related at all.  Phones are relatively new, only having been used for about 10 years. We simply haven’t had enough time to see the true effect of phones and their radiation on our bodies.  Plus, the phone industry makes BILLIONS a year, why invest money in research when everything is working out for everyone just fine now?Experts suggest to limit your close contact with your phone.  For example, when on a phone call use headphones and keep your phone on a table or away from your body, or store your phone in a purse or backpack rather than your pocket or hand.Will we all come down with brain tumors in 10-20 years? Possibly. Is it likely? No, but why not do the simplest tasks to reduce your exposure and potentially add years onto your life.