Cell Phones and Brain Irritation

The New York Times reports that there is some new research out that studies how cell phones affect human brains. Apparently the National Institutes of Health (NIH) strapped a cell phone on the heads of victims – I mean “volunteers” – and ran them through a PET scanner for close to an hour.

If the phone was off, nothing unusual was happening. If the phone was on playing a pre-recorded message, there was activity on the side of the brain closest to the phone.

This should surprise no one. Even my untrained medical mind knows that the activity that shows up is irritation, like the red skin around a cut or scrape as it tries to heal itself.

Think about it – this is the part of the brain closest to the phone and it’s listening to a prerecorded message. If I had to listen to an hour long robocall I’d be irritated on more than just one side of my brain.

They’re trying to figure out if cell phones are detrimental to us.

Of course, most people don’t need a study to answer that question. Of course they are. Think back to the time pre-cell phones, just a couple of decades ago.

People walked down the street looking at things, rather than staring at a screen sending text messages and causing a “blackberry jam” on the sidewalk.

While dinner at home might be interrupted by a ringing telephone, dinner in a restaurant was usually safe. You could actually talk to the people you were eating dinner with and know that you had their attention because they made eye contact.

Look at how much everyone's lives have changed in the time since cell phones became common.  It should surprise no one that our brains are irritated. Now they have to figure out what to do to stop the irritation.

One possible solution, of course, is to simply stop using cell phones but that’s just crazy talk.

People have been concerned about radio waves impacting their brains for years. In the 60’s and 70’s, you could tell them by the tin foil caps they wore around town, to keep the government from reading their thoughts. 

At least, you could if you lived in a small town. Now it’s a little harder, because someone walking down the street talking to themselves may just have a good Bluetooth connection.

I think that's the tact I'm going to take, though, and will start lining my cap with foil.  I might even forego the cap and just wear a sheet of tin foil on my head.

If I do it long enough, I bet people stop calling.