In today’s world, it is very difficult to keep people away from mobile phones. We all are also strongly bonded within the Social Media Network (Impact of Mobile Phones). Mature people can maintain the pace but children and youth get highly affected by the mobile phone usage, may be in a positive or negative manner.
As already we are aware mobile phones work in a radio-frequency environment with more and more technological development. The radiations emitted by extensive mobile usage can have adverse effects on children, youth, adults and old people.
Positive Impact of Mobile Phones
Positive effect of Mobile Phones is seen in Education, it has become very convenient. Students can easily interact with their fellow friends’ for important data for class work or assignments. It is also successful for gathering information to prepare project reports and other educational purposes. Teachers also find it easy to keep their students updated with the class and exam schedules.
Social sites like LinkedIn, Naukri.com, Indeed.com etc., perform the short cuts for applying and getting jobs. It gives better prospect to candidates who are seeking for particular job profile. One can search for jobs or people of their choice to work for or work with in no time on mobile phones.
The easiest way to advertise anything is to upload it on social sites. Social media within no time conveys the news or information than any other media like radio, television or newspapers. These days we are provided with government sites as well as private sites for filing documents. Ticket booking has become very serviceable to the customers, may it be for a movie show, a hotel in a far town or for an overseas travel trip.
Through many years, mobiles have helped people to stay connected with their distant friends, relatives and other influential people in their lives, which would have otherwise been impossible. Hence, mobile phones are an excellent platform to promote and facilitate innumerable things.
But there is a fact that for every positive side there lays negative side too. Because, people starts misusing the amenities instead of its use and this creates problems.
Health Issues:
Various researchers have pointed out that just 2 minutes of the phone call can alter the electoral activity of the brain for up to an hour. The radio waves transmitted from the mobile usage deep into the brain, not just around the ear. This disturbs the brain activity which could impair the abilities of working (Impact of Mobile Phones). Not only had this it also creates many health related problems and behavioral problems. They have tremendous mood swings and also hamper the ability of learning, thinking, decision making and working activities on whatever platform they are on.
Effect on Teens:
Teens are highly addicted to mobile phones and looking to them children is also following the same. They talk to their friends, play games, chat and always hang on their mobile phone all the time. Along with the academics query, many students make their daily trips to their school with their mobile phones. They chat on the phone during the break time and send messages during the classes. Finally they miss the lesson taught and fall behind the other students.
Inappropriate Behavior:
Mobile usage leads children to engage in improper behaviors. Transferring inappropriate text, messages and pictures is a growing problem with teens. The pictures go in the wrong hands and are misused, also giving access to the private photos. Children get in habit to access pornographic sites from their multimedia devices.
Inhibition of Brain Development:
Smart phones screens can affect health of people especially babies whose brains are still developing. Psychologists says the first three years of a child’s life are “the critical period” in brain development because what the child’s brain perceive during these years becomes the permanent base upon which all future learning relies (Impact of Mobile Phones). Receiving information from the real world around them helps babies to transmit via neural pathways will make their brains strong and healthy.
Harming Teens’ Brains:
Though older kids don’t face the situation of intense brain development as babies, kids’ and adolescents‘ but brains continue to develop and can be harmed by too much usage of smart phones.
Brains of teenagers are very adaptable and keep switching rapidly between many activities such as texting and using social media is associated with lower levels of brain matter in teens which is responsible for emotional processing and decision-making (Impact of Mobile Phones).
For interpreting emotions and for focusing on tasks another part of our brains is used which becomes active around 20s. This also gets harmed by long smart phone usage. This has been explained by Paul Atchley, a psychology professor at the University of Kansas, he said it is important to train that prefrontal cortex not to be easily distracted. But what we are seeing today is that young people are constantly getting distracted, and also less sensitive to the emotions of others.
No Friends:
Smart phones usage has also made difficulty in making friends. Brian Primack, Director of the Center for Research on Media, Technology and Health at the University of Pittsburgh warns that social interaction is becoming dangerous with excess mobile usage.
Sleeping Disorder in Children:
The secret of good health is having sound sleep. Sleep plays a very vital role in keeping the body fresh and healthy those children who sleeps less than needed are often unhealthy and easily irritated, it disturb their digestive system, they invite diseases like diabetes and heart problems. In the future, their development stops due to lack of sleep, as growth hormone from pituitary glands gets secreted during sleep, less sleep means less development. In the earlier time, there was no TV computer and mobile games children often would go to bed after playing and studying and sleep comfortably and remain healthy but the use of these gadgets has affected the sleep of the children; late night watching TV, Internet surfing, use of mobile phones has disturbed their sleep badly nowadays there are separate rooms for children, so parents are less aware about the sleeping disorder of the child (Impact of Mobile Phones). Parents should form a routine for sleeping and should be obeyed strictly. Spend time with children before sleeping; don’t let him play in the bedroom with TV computer and video games.
Diseases
In the recent years, there has been a lot of assumption about the impact of cell phone radiation on our body. The mobile usage health hazards for people are as follows:
Cancer:
Children imbibe 60 percent or more of the radiation into the brain than adults. This is told by WHO. By using phones the radiation which is emitted ‘possibly carcinogenic to humans’. Brain’s thinner skin, tissues, and bones allow kids to absorb the radiation twice than the grown-ups. Developing nervous system makes them more susceptible to this ‘carcinogen’.
Tumors:
There has been extensive research, for quite a long time, on the ground of understanding cell phone radiation effects on children. Since they are in a stage where their body is undergoing tremendous changes and growth, the effects of mobile radiation on them could be different from those on adults.
Children that have a tendency to use phones for extended periods of time, keeping them close to their ears, have shown a higher chance of developing non-malignant tumors, especially in the regions of the ear and the brain.
The radiation can have strange effects in the human body, sometimes directly affecting the nervous system, too. This has been classified by the World Health Organization as a “possible carcinogen” and carries a potential risk of cancer.
Depression in Kids:
Indeed, heavy mobile usage is associated with higher rates of stress and depression in kids. One study conducted by the Center on Media and Child Health at the University of Alberta found that over the past three to five years, as smart phone use has spread, Almost 90% of teachers reported that the number of students with emotional challenges is increased; 86% of teachers report that the number of students with social challenges has gone up as well.
Between 2010 and 2016, the number of adolescents who experienced major depression grew by 60%, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services. Suicides have also increased significantly among kids’ ages 10 to 19 during that time. It was found that since 2010, teens that spend more time using smart phones and other technology are more likely to report having mental health problems than teens that spend less time with their devices.
On surveying it was found by Prof. Twenge that half a million adolescents across the United States were addicted to smart phone use and harmed themselves. If three or more hours are spent on mobile usage by the kids then they are more likely to suffer at least one suicide-related symptom such as feeling hopeless or thinking about suicide than kids who limit their smart phone and other device use to two hours a day or less. If used devices for five or more hours each day, nearly half reported experiencing at least one suicide related outcome.
Prof. Twenge has found. Kids who use social media every day are 13% more likely to have high levels of depressive symptoms than those who don’t (Impact of Mobile Phones). She found teens that did not use their smart phones some of the time and who spent the most time interacting face to face seemed to be the healthiest emotionally.
Steps Taken to Reduce Mobile Phone Radiation Exposure
It is suggested that mobile phones aren’t harmful, but long-term risks and consequences are harmful.
One can reduce exposure to RF radiation by:
- Selecting a mobile phone model that has a low specific absorption rate (SAR), which refers to the amount of RF radiation absorbed by body tissues
- Practice to use a landline phone if it is available.
- keeping short mobile phone calls
- using ear phones (Impact of Mobile Phones)
- not carrying mobile phone close to body when it is switched on
- Protective devices or ‘shields’ can reduce exposure to RF
- Do not let children use the phone in areas where the signal strength is weak, as mobiles amplify their own radiation to get good signal strength, which can be harmful to the child.
“Everything Has Positive and Negative Affects It Depends on One’s Choice”
