Cell phones – The number of people using cell phones ranges from 73.8% of the population using it in UAE to 14% in

Indonesia. Unbelievable as this may sound – India is at a lowly 16.8% (but then we have a huge population and a lot of us live below the poverty line and that is a mighty lowly poverty line! ).

Most mobile users are however more than addicted to the cell phone and spend on an average 3 hours on the cellphone daily. All of us are equally guilty and these are average figures.

There is a lot of hype in the media about the radiation associated with the use of cell phones and mobile towers. Naturally, I get a lot of questions from parents about the harmful effects of radiation associated with cell phone use (never mind, if they themselves are addicts)!

Some nitty gritty facts that should help alleviate your fears:

The type of radiation emitted from mobile phones is electromagnetic radiation. It is present in mobiles because they use radio frequency (RF) waves to make and receive calls.
The doses are considered to be very small as the emissions are low power (short range).

There has been no conclusive evidence that using a mobile phone causes long term harmful effects in humans ‘AS YET’

So should you be [simple_tooltip content=’unimpressed or indifferent’]blasé[/simple_tooltip] and just go ahead and use it all the time – A resounding No! The key words in the sentence above were ‘AS YET’.

So do take usual sensible precautions to reduce the levels of radiation you absorb from using your phone :

• Moving your phone 20cm away from your head reduces radiation doses by about 98%. So instead of placing it under your pillow when going to bed, leave the phone at a bedside table.
• Hands free headsets dramatically reduce radiation emissions into the brain.
• Try not to chat for hours on end or, if you must, get a hands free kit.
• There are a few devices on the market that you can fit to your phone that reduce the emissions of radiation or allow the body to neutralize the effects, but beware of over-hyped promotions by these manufacturers using scare tactics to market their products.
• It’s always sensible to take precautions where children are concerned as their developing brains and bodies are far more susceptible to radiation effects than adults, absorbing radiation at three times an adult’s rate.

But Doctor! I am really worried! There is a mobile tower in our building and we live on the top floor!

• To get a dose of radiation considered significant from a mobile phone transmission antenna, you would have to be almost touching it.
• The antennas beam signals in all directions, so they don’t ‘blow’ radiation directly onto us below. Please remember that the towers that support the antennas don’t emit radiation.
• Radiation dramatically and rapidly decreases as you move away from the tower – a mere 10 meters away, the dose is 0.1% of what it was at 1 meter away; 0.0125% at 20 meters away and so on.

So there! Do be sensible but not paranoid about this invisible radiation!