Health Concerns of Excessive SMSing

A few weeks ago a close friend raised a very strange question: She wondered whether scans are considered as dangerous to your unborn baby’s health as cellphone radiation is considered to your general health?

According to an investigative report on Mashable:

• The average teenager between the ages of 13 and 17, send approximately 3,339 SMS’s per month.
• Female teens send approximately 4,050 SMS’s, compared to male teens that send on average 2,539 SMS’s per month.
• The average only decreases with older age groups, with 18 to 24 year-olds sending only 1,630 SMS’s per month.
• Voice usage among teens has decreased by 14%.

This shows us that communication via a mobile platform (SMS, MXit, Blackberry Messenger, Whatsapp) has become the main source of communication for teenagers. This might be because we have become accustomed to finding out what someone is doing, right now, at all hours. We want and expect an instant response; we don’t want a delayed response.

Teenagers have grown up in this climate – they don’t have any recollection of a time when it was considered acceptable to not answer the phone after 9pm or going to work or school for 6-8 hours at a time without any “outside” contact. Because the boundaries within communication have shifted quite a bit, it is now deemed acceptable to expect a response within minutes.

Generally speaking, one hears many concerns about excessive or even any cellphone use. A health issue I have associated with cellphone radiation (based on my own theories) was the growing number of people with tumours, especially of the brain. I have also jokingly referred to my Blackberry Arthritis Thumb. There are however concerns among some medical specialists in the following areas:

• Muscle problems arising from repetitive typing
• Cellphone elbow, also referred to as Cubital Tunnel Syndrome, is a tingling sensation in hands caused by compression of a nerve
• Pain in the thumbs or Blackberry Thumb
• Back and neck pain
• Shoulder discomfort
• Disorders and diseases such as Eye Cancer, Brain Tumours, etc.
• Sleep problems (especially in men)
• Negative impact on the health of sperm
• Inability to shutdown outside communication
• Decreased attention span
• Radiation around the waist area (where most phones are held) that can possibly harm the kidneys
• Stress symptoms (especially among men)
• Prolonged stress" reported among women was associated with the number of text messages per day.

I would just like to note that all of the above concerns are based on observation, and need more study and research for them to have solid support. In the research world, SMSing has primarily been studied as a tool of communication, rather than a medium that could have detrimental effects on health. Furthermore, cellphone’s have only really been in use for 10-15 years and therefore it will take many more years to give substantial evidence for the above mentioned concerns.

Greater concerns that do not need further study, and are based on actual facts include:

• Death, due to car accidents, while SMSing and crossing the road at the same time;
• Sexting, which leads to reports on rape, abduction and suicide;
• SMSing while driving at high speeds - an insurance poll found that 67% of teens admitted to texting while driving at high speed, and 37% of teens admitted to having been "extremely distracted" by texting, in some cases leading to close calls or significant accidents.

The purpose of these articles is always the same: How should parents be stepping in, without removing their child’s social life and where should parents draw the line?

At this point experts are not encouraging parents to forbid cellphone use by their children, but they feel it won’t hurt to change the way they are used, particularly by children. Children’s' skulls are thinner than those of adults - at least until they're 13 or 14-years old -so any potential cellphone risk would be that much greater for them.

Here are some things to consider on a practical level:

• Talk to your children and make them aware of the dangers. Ask them how they feel about it. By making them part of the solution, rather than making them feel like the problem, is a step in the right direction;
• Children under 14 should rather send text messages or use head sets or phones on speaker phone;
• Abstain from talking on a cellphone while you are actively driving;
• If you need to answer a call or make one, try and pull off the road into a safe parking area (or use a hands free kit);
• Make sure the phone is within easy reach, not in the glove compartment or a purse where you might have to dig for it, or put it somewhere you won’t be tempted to answer it, like in the boot of your car;
• Use a hand’s free device like a Bluetooth headset or earpiece. Corded headsets emit almost no RF, and using a headset or speaker phone allows you to move the device away from your body. Even moving the phone 4 inches away from your head reduces RF exposure 1,000 times. It also allows you to talk while both hands remain on the wheel;
• When driving or in a situation that demands your undivided attention, postpone conversations that are either emotional or complex;
• Stay off the phone if the signal is poor. Fewer signal bars mean the phone has to work harder to get a signal, so it may emit more RF. Also, don't talk when you're driving. In addition to the dangers of being distracted, people who are behind the wheel while they're on their cellphones may face an increased RF exposure risk. That's because the phone signal must move to several wireless towers;
• Don't keep cellphones in your pocket or attached to your belt;
• Do not send a text message or try and read incoming messages while driving;
• Shop for the latest models of phones that feature voice activated dialling and speed dialling;
• Don’t sleep next to your phone.

As a therapist my concern lies with the emotional impact excessive use might have on your child. Stress, failure to escape (even through sleep), peer pressure, decreased verbal communication between teenagers and the pressure to perform can lead to countless emotional concerns.

It is your responsibility as a parent to educate your child and to make sure he/she is emotionally intelligent when it comes to human interaction. The most important thing is to teach them to set healthy boundaries. Distance, time and privacy all form part of your personal space and therefore personal boundaries. Communicate this to your child. Give them the reassurance that by establishing a set of rules about communication that they feel comfortable with, and that suite the lifestyle and rules of the family they live in will help them feel in control, rather than controlled, is good and acceptable and healthy.

Remember, you need to set the example and also stick to the communication rules that are implemented within your household.

References: http://hubpages.com/hub/Texting-and-The-New-Generation http://www.health24.com/news/Arthritis/1-891,53357.asp http://www.cellphonesafety.org/safer/tips.htm http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/cell-phones-brain-cancer-dr-oz-safety-tips/story?id=9090936&page=2 http://blog.mlive.com/right_fit/2009/05/too_much_texting_the_new_york.html