Wireless Hazards

CEBU, Philippines — Our modern lifestyle has become more and more dependent on electronics. And manufacturers of electronic products are moving ahead at a rapid pace with new gadgetry, particularly for homes and offices. More sophisticated, remote-control operated appliances, satellite equipment and wireless phones and computers are consistently coming up.

These things, no doubt, enhance our lives by providing us with many new conveniences, entertainment options and access to information. However, exciting as these things are – they are also frightening in terms of the potential health hazards they pose. These technological innovations can expose us to more and more radiation that even the most careful among us may find hard to avoid.

One of the most potentially threatening technological developments of the near future is the so-called wireless revolution. More and more voice and data communications products will use radio waves instead of wires and cables to send and receive information, as we are seeing today with cellular phones. The use of radio waves has long been plagued with health issues. 

There were, in the early 90s, concerns raised about the potential hazards of the cellular-phone technology. Unfortunately, it had little effect in containing the trend. Even back then the technology circle was already moving full-speed ahead in developing communication, entertainment, and computer systems that rely completely on radio waves.

It is believed that everything that has a wire today will be wireless in 10 to 15 years’ time. New wireless products, while literally freeing us up, are to substantially increase the level of radio waves to which we’d be exposed.

For instance, when all of us eventually switch to cellular phones, as predicted, and each person spends 30 minutes a day on the phone (the estimated average daily usage) our exposure to radiation is multiplied many times over – we get close radiation exposure from our own phones and from radio waves in the air emanating from the phones of all the other users.

The amount of radio waves being transmitted between cellular phones and the cellular base stations will soon increase tremendously. In effect, even non-users of cellular phones won’t be spared from radiation. Yet cellular phones, although presently the most common, are not the only items being churned out by the wireless technology. Any gadget that does away with wires, no matter how innocuous looking, uses radio waves to function.

There is radiation in ordinary remote-controls, wireless security systems, beepers and pagers, mini-discs that come with a subscription to TV channels via satellite, and in many other common devices and gadgets we are using at home and in the office. We are also exposed to radiation from common electrical appliances like TV sets, refrigerators, microwave ovens etc.

Fortunately, technology leaders seem to be beginning to heed the alarm. While developments in the electronic world still continues to lead us into a potentially unhealthy future, various industries are now allotting research money for studies on how to redesign their products. Cellular phone manufacturers, for instance, are looking at reconfiguring the antennae of their devices so that they emit less radiation.

For their part, cellular phone networks are erecting more radio towers in order to reduce the distance radio waves have to travel between the cellular phones and the towers. This allows phones to transmit and receive signal using less powerful and safer radio waves.

Yet what is perhaps the biggest first step against the hazards of radiation is public awareness. When people are aware of the risks, they can begin to take steps to avoid or minimize their exposure to it. Prudence in the use of wireless devices is, by far, the best form of protection there is.