Like most of the population on Earth, I am guilty of sleeping with my phone. Everyone is guilty of sleeping with their phone because let’s face it, we all look at our phones before we go to bed. Whether we are on the internet, refreshing our social media feeds or answering some text messages we are on our phones unaware of the dangers it possesses.
According to this article, sleeping with our phones on our night stand causes us to experience things such as nightmares, the inability to sleep and even waking up several times in the night. The reason why is because cell phones are still connected the base connections with radio transmissions. Meaning that cell phone’s constantly radiate electromagnetic waves into the environment making us catch all of the waves. Experts on this subject believe that you should keep your cell phone at least three feet away from you when you sleep. They also offer alternatives to making sure that we have a restful sleep. One way is to turn your phone off at night, this means that you can still keep it on the nightstand, or another unpopular option is putting your phone somewhere in your house, like the kitchen or living room. The reason why this is unpopular is because people like to keep their phones near them in case of emergency. If this is still a problem you can keep your phone on and next to you at night, just turn off the wifi or internet connection.
Recently the biggest problem with sleeping with your phone is actually sleeping with your phone under your bed. People across the world have slept with their phone charging under their pillow. You can set your pillow on fire from doing this. From different reports, people have stated that when they wake in the middle of the night to their phone burning they are most likely to find their sheets scorched and their phone melted. This is extremely dangerous to our health, and you can even get severe burns from sleeping on it. The boy in the article received a radiation burn from sleeping on his phone after returning home from work.
Finally the last reason to not sleep with your phone is because you have the chance of getting cancer. When we are sleeping the electromagnetic radiation pumps out of your phone causing you to get all of it. Too much of this can cause us to get cancer. The Huffington Post stated that the electromagnetic radiation coming your phone is possible carcinogenic. It also suggests that you keep your phone away from you when you sleep or have your disconnected from the Internet or on airplane mode. In short, the best way to make it so you do not have to buy a new phone, pillow or pay hospital bills is to keep your phone away from you and off.
Sources:
Girl awake with phone picture is found here.
Girl with many electronic devices picture is found here.
Girl asleep with phone picture is found here.
I think that your topic is really interesting and I can relate because I always keep my phone near me when I go to bed so I can hear my alarm in the morning. I liked how you explained the different reasons why sleeping with a phone near you is bad for you sleep and health. However, I think it would have been better if you were able to come up with a specific question about cell phones and their effects. For example, in the last paragraph you discuss how cell phones, when we sleep with them near us, can possibly cause cancer. I think that this is an interesting question that you could find some studies to evaluate and discuss. I found this article that describes a rat study that was conducted to see if cell phones can cause cancer. Although rats are not people, 70-80% of the people who reviewed the experiment said that the rats faced a higher risk of cancer by the end of the study.
This post is very relatable! I used to fall asleep at night holding my phone with the brightness on at full-force. I would then wonder why the next morning I’d wake up with severe headaches and sometimes migraines. After experiencing the unbearable pain and complaints from my parents, I now put my phone on airplane mode during the night, turning off all radio-frequency waves. I’ve actually noticed quite a difference as I rarely wake up with pounding headaches and aching eyes. Here is an article that addresses a study conducted to prove the harmful effects of sleeping with your phone.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/mobile-phone-radiation-wrecks-your-sleep-771262.html
This is interesting and helpful to the class, but I would like to see how you could relate this to class material.
So as I think about it, we all know bad it is to have a phone near you or under your bed. But why do students do it so much? Are they waiting for a text, or a call? Maybe if they get bored they can check YouTube? Also an alarm could be the case.
In a study on the risk of cellphone obsessions, it talks about how we humans thrive on positive reinforcement. That is why if we don’t check that one notification, we will go crazy. I feel like its hard for students to relax, and they just want to keep checking all these notifications. This is also bad because the light on a device activates the brain, which then keeps people awake. Which would the reinforce someone to go back on their cell phone. The cycle never ends.
I was thinking of a study. It would have to be long term to really see if people actually do get bad dreams, or even cancer. It would have to be observational. The X variable, having your cell near you, would be manipulated. (if you compared people sleeping with their cell vs. people sleeping without their cellphone). The y-variable would be whatever is observed, maybe moods.
This article is so relevant because in our generation it is rare to see someone without their phone glued to them, even when they go to sleep. I found the most interesting part of this post describing an increased likelihood of developing cancer if you sleep with your phone. Though I myself feel that there is some sort of correlation between cellphone use, and cancer rates many studies prove otherwise. Here is an article that explains the opposing view! http://dailycaller.com/2016/05/10/a-29-year-long-study-shows-cell-phones-dont-cause-cancer/
A family friend of mine was diagnosed with testicular cancer about a year ago. The doctor explained that the cause of this may have been his cell phone which he always carried in his front pocket. When we heard of this, my dad instructed me to stop holding my phone in my front pocket as it may be the cause of testicular cancer. I was never sure if this was scientifically accurate until I found this article explaining the strong correlation between the two https://thetruthaboutcancer.com/mobile-phone-radiation/
I completely understand this and can relate a lot. Just last night I was woken up by a notification. Its hard to see that a small amount of radiation from our phone can cause us to get cancer. Do you have any data to support this theory? I will post a link to the cancer society that believes the opposite. Enjoy
http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/athome/cellular-phones
I really enjoy this blog post because I think it is relevant in every students life. After reading this I might just have to say sorry to my mom because she would always tell me how serious this was but I never listened. I do believe I will start to sleep with my phone further away from me and might even shut it off. My phone is on me all day conducting electromagnetic radiation so when I’m not using it as I go to bed I should do myself a favor and shut it off and throw it in the charger. Here is an article which tells us where to put our phones when we go to sleep, i hope you enjoy it.
http://steptohealth.com/bad-sleep-near-cell-phone/