by Michael Richards

Created on: August 25, 2009

You're driving down the interstate when your cellphone rings. You reach into the cubby where your phone usually sits and it is not there. The phone continues to ring while you try to listen and find out exactly where the sound is coming from. You realize it's coming from under your seat. You reach down for your phone at the same time jerking your steering wheel towards the right. You go careening off the road into a ditch. This is an obvious effect of cellphones, causing accidents. This of course is easily prevented by putting your driving up higher in priority then your phone calls. Are there other effects of cellphones that aren't so easily prevented? Can the radiation from a cell phone cause a brain tumor? Are cellphones just another one of those things you should use very sparingly? If that is the case will anybody really care? Will it change the way people look at cellphones?

With children getting cellphones as young as eight years old, maybe we should review the long term effects of cell phone use. There have been many studies in the case of whether cellphones pose health risks. The studies have shown that the radiation given off by cell phones is insufficient to cause any type of harm. Motorola has funded a study in which they exposed rats to a pulse modulated 837 MHz RF frequency and found no evidence that the exposure leads to brain cancer.

Are the studies made towards the link between cell phones and cancer really proving anything? Where they cant absolutely prove that cellphones do cause brain tumors they are far from proving they don't. Consider this, many people talk on the phone for several hours a day. With a little bit of exposure added up quite regularly it could very well be possible that cell phone use over years and years can really add up the radiation the brain takes in.

If health effects are found to be a big factor in cellphone use will it stop people from using them so often? In short probably not. It will just be another one of those things that people will continue even though they know it has serious health risks. Many will find that the convenience of a cellphone by far outweighs its side effects. It has been proven that cellphone use while driving increases the risk of an automobile accident, however that doesn't stop people from driving while chatting away. I'm sure the government will add relevant regulations for cell phone manufacturers as studies indicate the need. All in all I believe cell phones can be very useful devices.

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