"Does Wi-Fi Radiation Affect Brain Function?"
I've addressed how cell phones may affect brain function,
and how both cell phones and Wi-Fi may affect male fertility,
but what about the effects of Wi-Fi on brain functioning?
The possible existence of cognitive effects
of these kinds of radiofrequency energies
has been one of the more contentious discussions in the forever-contentious
issue of whether exposure has any health consequences whatsoever.
Wi-Fi has been called an uncontrolled global experiment
on the health of humankind.
The effects of radiofrequency fields gained new urgency
as the World Health Organization officially declared cell phone radiation
to be a possible human carcinogen based on brain tumor risks.
But their decision has no direct relevance
to the possible health effects of Wi-Fi,
since the exposures are so much different.
We may absorb 100 times less radiation in a typical exposure
to Wi-Fi compared compared to cell phones,
but you don't know if there are effects until you put it to the test.
Can Wi-Fi Affect Brain Function?
To date, more than 100 studies have been published on the effects of these kinds
of emissions on human brain wave patterns, as measured by EEG.
While the results are mixed, a fairly consistent finding is that
even a short duration of exposures to the head can produce
small, but statistically significant, changes in the EEG
of resting and sleeping subjects.
This effect is acknowledged by most health agencies,
but the question is, what do you do with that information?
For example, a review sponsored by the European governing body concluded
that the relevance of such small changes remains unclear
and we don't even know how it's happening at all.
Some have suggested it's an artifact of the test, and that EEG wires
may be acting like antennas that carry the waves straight to the brain,
in effect contributing to the changes that it's been set up to measure.
Either way, you don't see the kind of neurocognitive effects with Wi-Fi
exposure that you do with cell phones. For example, no measurable effects
were found on reaction time or sustained attention.
Now this was testing 2.4 gigahertz Wi-Fi,
but if anything, we would expect even lower levels of exposure
from the newer 5 gigahertz Wi-Fi due to the shallower penetration depth.
Though more accurately a person who spends hours a day glued
to a smartphone or tablet may very well experience all sorts of neurocognitive
effects, but from the use of this technology, not from the radiation.
It's interesting, there's a large literature out there about
the health implications of these new technologies for young people,
but it's about the content.
For example, never before in history has such sexually explicit material
been indiscriminately available to youth, and we need to ask ourselves
as a society what effect this may be having?
Girls and boys are being exposed to a "colossal" amount of digital media
on smartphones, which makes access to pornographic material
all too easy, cheap, and anonymous.
No longer confined to homes and bedrooms, young people can now
watch pornography in school, out in public, just a touch of a button away,
and researchers have only begun cataloguing the effects this may have
on young people's attitudes and behaviors.
Most college students these days report seeing online pornography
as a minor, before age 18.
Of 1,500 high school boys surveyed,
the vast majority admit to accessing web porn,
nearly one in three for more than an hour at a time.
What is that teaching our next generation of men?
Researchers sat through and content coded 400 videos
from mainstream Internet porn sites, and more than a third of the videos displayed
acts of physical violence against women, such as gagging or choking.
Yeah, but does watching such material lead to sexually aggressive behaviors?
Fifteen hundred 10 to 15-year-olds were followed for years
to see if there was link between intentional exposure to such material
and later sexually aggressive behaviors such as sexual assault. They found
that exposure to violent porn over time predicted an almost 6-fold increase
in the odds of self-reported sexual aggression.
The question of course, though, is which came first?
A major difficulty with interpreting this kind of research is that
teens predisposed to that kind of behavior are of course the ones
who may be drawn to that material in the first place,
so no cause and effect link can be established.
All we can do as parents is closely monitor what our children are doing
to the best of our abilities.