Like most people my age, I am constantly on my smartphone for one reason or another. They have become so engrained into our lives that I find myself and others frequently checking our phones even when we have no real reason to, or browsing Twitter, or reading news. In fact, I became interested in this topic after seeing a headline about it on my phone.

So can smartphones cause brain cancer? This article from CNN certainly thinks so. In the headline of the article, CNN quotes WHO (World Health Organization, not the band) in saying that cell phones can increase the risk of cancer. However, just below this headline, it states that “no adverse health effects had been established.”

The article claims that the radiation emanating from our iPhones is similar to “low-powered microwave oven,” and goes on to say that it “cooks the brain” which can lead to other issues like memory function.

The article does mention that the biggest issue with this sort of claim is that smartphones haven’t been around long enough to properly establish whether or not there is a threat, which I linked to the topic in class about smoking. I don’t think we can say just yet that smartphones cause cancer based off this study, but I’m definitely more hesitant to use mine as often because there’s not much of an opportunity cost of not checking twitter four times a day.

The study conducted explained that it followed people who had used a cellphone for 10 years or more, and these people had doubled their risk for “brain glioma, a type of tumor.”

My take on this is that it’s hard to say that cellphones alone caused this double in risk, because the type of people who have been using cellular phones for ten years at this point grew up in a generation where a ton of new technology (computers, video games, etc) came out as well and most of these people were likely exposed to these types of tech as well. I think it is hard to pinpoint cell phones as the primary cause because almost everyone at this point has a phone, and there are many other things in common with the average cell user than this.