Cell phones treat your brain like coffee; UK Telecoms hiring new damage control spin doctor
Office SleepA joint American-Swedish study has linked cell phones with a lack of sleep and apparently researchers need to learn about that vibrate switch before going to bed.
The Detroit News and BBC have reported that a study conducted at Wayne State University in Detroit and Karolinska Institute in Sweden has found a connection between insomnia and cell phone use.
"The study strongly suggests that mobile phone use is associated with specific changes in the areas of the brain responsible for activating and coordinating the stress system," said one researcher.
The study was funded by the Mobile Manufacturers Forum, a trade group for the cell phone industry.
It’s interesting to hear about something potentially harmful coming from a study funded by its own industry. It should be little surprise that the Mobile Manufacturers Forum probably won’t publish the study’s results on its website.
The cell phone sleep study used 35 men and 36 women between 18 and 45 years old. It found that 884MHz - 850MHz wireless frequencies used by GSM mobile networks adversely affected sleep.
Let’s see, that’s 36 women-in Sweden. I may never wake up.
A spokesman for the British mobile phone operators told British radio on Monday the findings were - inconclusive. He added that using a mobile phone before bed is no worse than drinking a cup of coffee before bed.
The mobile telecom industry in the UK mustn’t be very good at damage control. Perhaps they should hire a spin doctor from an American drug company to show them how it’s done.
Doesn’t saying that wireless signals have the same effects as a cup of coffee constitute an admission of the study’s finding? Or did the telecom spokesperson fail to mention that he was talking to his stock broker on the cell phone before bed?
