Fear Of Cell Phones

Commentary

Web produced by: Kerry Duke

By Ben Grabow
Scripps Howard News Service

Better safe than sane, that's what I always say.

What's your opinion on the safety of cell phones? Not the safety of driving while dialing or crossing busy streets mid-message -- we're talking tumors. Do you worry about holding that handheld by your brain for an hour or more every day? Maybe not. Or, at least, not enough to stop.

Would you, then, hold it next to a newborn? Right over his little baby noggin? For an hour or more every day? Suddenly it seems like a bad idea. As it turns out, there's a little hesitation about cellular technology in all of us.

It was no surprise, then, that when the director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute asked his friends and colleagues to limit their children's exposure to such phones, it got a lot of outside attention.

Though the Food and Drug Administration sees no threat and numerous studies claim otherwise, the director issued a memo suggesting that phones could affect developing brains and should only be used with a headset. He later claimed that, because science sometimes moves slower than technology, it's better to "err on the side of being safe rather than sorry later."

And I have to say, I wholeheartedly agree. Which is why I feel it's my duty to share an important fact with my readers. No conclusive scientific studies have shown that newsprint does not cause cancer.

It's better to be safe now than sorry later, so you'd do well to ball up this section and toss it in the trash. In fact, you'd better get the whole paper out of the house. It probably wouldn't hurt to toss the grocery ads, either.

Not convinced? Well, why is that? You can actually see the sinister newsprint on your fingers! So perhaps it's invisibility that inspires our anxiety. But nobody really worries about radio waves or television signals. We might avoid a running microwave, but we'd all agree that the food that comes out is probably more dangerous than the oven itself.

Somehow, cell phones are different. For some reason, though all the evidence claims otherwise, we almost (begin ital) want (end ital) to believe that our cell phones are dangerous. And not "likely to put you in an unsafe situation" dangerous, but "invisible cosmic woo-woo rays" dangerous.

Is it a media-inspired neurosis? Do we simply fear technology we don't fully understand? Perhaps it's a passive-aggressive fantasy inspired by drivers who, carrying on an important phone conversation and oblivious to those around them, part three lanes of traffic to make the exit.

The sad reality is that you're far more likely to meet your end on the highway than through a brain tumor. The increasing number of important highway phone conversations certainly doesn't help your odds.

Once again, the strange fear of the cellular has been loosed from its belt holster and once again it's been stowed safely away. Someday we may grow comfortable enough with our phones to find something new and more frightening, like Wifi or weblogs.

But in the meantime, you'd be wise to keep the newspaper away from the kids. If the ink doesn't get them, the opinion section will.


Ben Grabow writes for the young, the urban and the easily amused. Contact him at thinlyread@gmail.com.