On April 3rd, 1973 Motorola changed the world by producing the first handheld mobile phone. Ever since then, the world’s global connectivity, relationships, and societies have changed drastically. Over the years, various forms of mobile phones have been created to coincide with the vast improvement of technology. While there are many opinions in regards to whether or not cellular phones have impacted our lives for the better, one ongoing study focuses on the negative impacts that the radiation omitted from cell phones has on the human body. In particular, whether or not this harmful radiation increases ones’ risk of developing brain cancer is an alarming concern. While cell phone production companies such as Apple and Blackberry have attempted to change their products in a healthier way, there still have not been clear answers to this worry. This is due to the fact that relatively speaking; cell phones are a new form of technology. For many years, the curiosity regarding the long term impacts of whether or not cell phone radiation was harmful to humans, and more broadly even if the radiation emitted by cell phones was supposedly “bad” could not be answered due to the fact that humans had not been exposed to this radiation for a long enough time period where scientists could come up with a definitive answer.  In very recent years, many studies have been finally completed to determine that yes- the radiation omitted through cell phones is in fact toxic. 

Over the last decade, the ages of children receiving or owning a cell phone has increased dramatically. According to research by C&R Research, twenty two percent of young children (ages 6-9), sixty percent of tweens (ages 10-14), and eighty four percent of teens (ages 15-18) all own a cell phone. According to market research from the Yankee Group, 54% of eight to twelve year olds will own a cell phone within the next three years. These rates have and will continue to drastically rise. With this increase of cell phone usage from the youth population, there come many factors that are causes for worry.  Technology safety, mental health risks, bullying, and distraction are all downsides that come from excessive usage of cell phones. However, the effects of the electromagnetic radiation from cell phones in close proximity to the body are still a concern. The long term impacts of this radiation is unknown, however, what the exact risks the youth society runs of developing more brain tumors due to earlier onset of cell phones within this younger generation is still a questionable fact. 

Regardless of the type of cell phone, all phones emit radiofrequency energy, a form of non-ionizing radiation from their antennas. Electromagnetic radiation is classified in two types: ionizing (x-rays, radon, and cosmic energy) and non-ionizing (microwaves and cellphones). Tissues nearest the antennas or the tops of the phone have the tendency to absorb this energy that is being emitted. Mobile phones are low-powered radiofrequency transmitters, operating at frequencies between 450 and 2700 MHz. The further the device is held from the body, the less radiation one is being exposed to. For example, sending a text message while holding your cell phone 30-40 centimeters from the body delivers far less radiation than someone holding the headset directly against their head to make a phone call. Cell phones are often prohibited in hospitals and on airplanes, as the radiofrequency signals may have the potential to interfere with certain electro-medical devices and navigation systems. These two examples alone show the strength of radiation that cell phones produce, considering hospital medical devices and airplane navigation systems are both highly powerful pieces of equipment. Considering the radiation from these cell phones within hospital and airplane premises can have this much impact on such high-class technology, the potential damage cell phones can do over years of exposure to a constantly growing and adapting brain is quite alarming. 

For years, scientists and doctors have believed that brain growth only occurs in adulthood through the synapsing and linkage of neurons. Quite frankly, many people have believed that we start off our lives with extra brain tissue, and over time, it “self-prunes” away. However, new research has shown that the part of the brain that specializes in reading facial expressions, recognizing people, and one’s ability to remember the appearance of faces becomes denser with new tissue over one’s lifespan. This study done by the neuroscience doctoral studies program at Stanford University correlates with the preconceived knowledge that adults are more capable and better at recognizing and remembering faces than children. As study author and PhD neuroscience student Jesse Gomez said, “It’s not like the brain is enlarging or bulging out,” rather these slight changes within our brain structure are only measurable by using a newer technology called the quantitative MRI. This quantitative MRI gives a precise measure of how much tissue exists in the brain. This growth is called microstructural, meaning the dendrites of the brain cells have the potential to grow. To prove this study was accurate, researchers used functional MRI (fMRI) and quantitative MRI (qMRI) screenings to compare brain tissues from twenty-two children ages 5-12 years old, between the brain tissues of twenty-five adults aged 22-28 years old. The participants viewed images of faces and places such as corridors and houses during their tests. Following each of the participant’s viewings, the scientists compared the recognition test results of the faces and places screenings. The compared these results with qMRI data that corresponds with the brain regions that were already known to be responsible for face and place recognition. The results of the comparison were astonishing to the researchers and confirmed their hypotheses. Gomez stated that they had learned from previous studies that the ability to recognize faces improves from childhood to adult hood, however, the new study suggests that it may be due to this new tissue growth. More specifically, the enriching of tiny neural networks, cell bodies, dendritic structures (fibers which receive signals in the central nervous system) and the myelin sheath (a protective layer around parts of the nervous system) were all confirmed to contribute to the newly developed tissue growth. 

This study proves that there is a continued growth of brain tissue, despite the aging of a person. Roughly nine in ten or 98% of adults in the United States own a cell phone of some brand. Due to this new study’s findings and the fact that the body’s biggest threat from electromagnetic radiation is the heating of our newest tissue, brain tissue in particular, our tissue overtime is going to detrimentally be worn out. This newest tissue that is in its developmental phase of an adult brain, trying to consistently detect and remember face structures is going to experience the biggest deficit from the impacts of cellular radiation. This tissue is going to be constantly heated up by cell phones due to the societal and career demands on a person’s life. Because of the wearing out of tissue, these new dendritic cells will not have the proper ability to grow into its most advanced and specialized form. This study lends a slightly more optimistic view of the brain and its capability of tissue growth and change in terms of how well our body can adapt. Gomez describes this change by saying “We peak in our ability to recognize faces around 25 to 30. I’d guess that’s when tissue growth probably stops. But that doesn’t mean you can’t take a 40- or 50-year-old and teach them something and see the brain change. Neuroscientists already thought the brain was quite plastic, but this study suggests that it might be even more plastic- more dynamic and responsive to experiences- than we previously thought.” However, with the added pressure that these cells face by constantly being exposed to cell phone radiation, these newly developed cells are going to be tremendously impacted in a negative way.  

In May of 2011, the WHO, more popularly known as the World Health Organization, recognized that there is an extreme possibility that cell phone radiation causes cancer. Following this recognition, the WHO listed cell phones as a registered carcinogen to humans. The electromagnetic radiation emitted from cell phones can cause the cells exposed to its electro-waves to become heated over time, thus, can cause immense damage. In many studies completed on the impacts of mobile phones, it has been seen that people that used a cell phone for more than an hour per day for over ten years had a significantly higher rate of brain cancer and many other detrimental effects such as; dizziness, neurosis, insomnia, headaches and changes in brain registry and activity. 

Twice as many children own a cell phone in today’s society than they did in 2004, states WebMD.  Considering that 85% of all American children under the age of 18 own a cell phone, this is an extremely high number when you compare it to the facts from the 2011 WHO report. This report was listed solely from tests done on adults aged 30 and older with only ten years of cell phone usage. In January of 2017, the life expectancy in the United States was ranked 26th in the world by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development. For US men, the average life expectancy reported was 76 years while for an American women, the average falls slightly higher at 81 years. The fact that 31% of children ages 8-10 years old own a cell phone and have at minimum sixty to seventy years left to live with only increased cell phone exposure is a highly alarming realization.

Today, being presented with your first cell phone is an essential “rite of passage” in the youth society. This is the way that the current youth generation is being brought up to communicate amongst each other and by doing so, we are extremely damaging our brains. A child’s brain absorbs up to ten times the radiation of an adult brain. To put it frankly in today’s world, the younger the age of a child, the higher the risk one faces of developing a brain tumor. While there is a surplus of evidence that can prove why cell phones are having negative impacts on our lives, the vast majority of people are still oblivious to the facts that they are harming themselves and more importantly the future lives of their children.  The Mobi-Kids study is currently underway by comparing cell phone use between 2,000 people who were diagnosed with brain tumors at 10 to 24 years of age with 2,000 healthy young people in the same age range. This study will hopefully give the world a better assessment on the long term effects that children are going to have to fight in their later lives due to the poor consumer advice and lack of guidelines and restrictions that exists in today’s cell phone consumption market. Belgium, France, India, and other technologically sophisticated countries have invested millions of dollars researching the potential detrimental effects of such a commonly used form of technology. Because of this research, many nations have now implemented laws and issued warnings about children’s use of wireless devices and cautioned parents of the risks they run when gifting their child with a cell phone at such an early age.  However, the United States of America is extremely behind in our attempts to protect the future generations. In August of 2015, the city of Berkeley, California, passed the first law that requires cell phone stores to inform customers about safety recommendations and the risks associated with mobile devices. Following this law implementation in Berkeley, California, the ordinance, called the Right to Know law, has started to require certain stores to give customers a handout or hang a sign in the storefront telling them about the federal guidelines on the amount of radiation a cell phone emits. Even though the FDA does not require cellphone production companies to list the exact health risks associated with cellphones, the overarching population of America and more broadly the world needs to take these subtle hints in order to catch on to the dangers we are surrounding ourselves constantly with before it is too late. 

With an entire generation growing up hooked on mobile cell phones, the effects of cell phone radiation will be extremely detrimental to this generation. Dr. Charlie Teo, a highly regarded Australian neurosurgeon presented on an episode of CBS’s “60 Minutes” that the rise of terminal malignant brain tumors will occur considering the obsessions and addictions of cell phone usage throughout the youth generation today. Brain cancer is already known as the leading cause of cancerous deaths amongst children. It also kills more young people under the age of thirty-nine than any other cancer. To follow up with these already known alarming statistics, Cambridge neurosurgeon Dr. Vini Khurana believes that within the next decade, mobile phones could be the latest public health issue since tobacco because of their known correlation with the development of malignant brain tumors, and the excessive exposure of EMR through children who have grown up with cell phones. The WHO reported in 2011 that high usage of a mobile phone was only considered to be thirty minutes per day. In 2016, CNN reported that teens spend on average ten hours absorbing media and communicating through a cell phone. This drastic obsession that our society has developed with the increase of social media, technology, and global connectivity is going to have to change in order to save our health and brains. In order to stop this terrifying potential of such an increase in childhood brain cancer, some aspect of our necessity to be constantly globally connected is going to have to transform in an alternative way. As our world’s obsession currently stands and if it keeps up, the youngest children are going to feel the biggest impact of the effects of the tools that schools, parents, and friends, are giving them the gateway towards. 

There are however many positive aspects that a cellphone plays in a child’s life aside from the health risks. For example, the ability of a child to access world news, stay connected with parents at all times, and have research mechanisms at their fingertips are many beneficial components that cellphones have provided our world. As Eugene S. Flamm, chairman of department of neurosurgery at Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine once said, "I wouldn't make the recommendation for my grandchildren that they shouldn't use a cell phone. I think there are many advantages of having close communication in our society, you have to weigh that against anything else." However, there is going to have to be a change in the way our society views the importance of connectivity in order to save ourselves, and the future generations of our world. 
