Mobile Phones Make You Senile?

Studies

from the now-what-was-that-again? dept

Having finally reached the point where enough studies have now shown that mobile phones are not likely to cause cancer, we have the latest mobile-phone induced problem to deal with. Researchers in Sweden are saying new research shows that mobile phones may cause senility for teenagers who use the phones. I’d argue against that idea, but I can’t remember what we’re talking about any more… Well, actually, as you might imagine the mobile phone industry has already responded quite quickly to the reports (which some say were already toned down at the insistence of the industry) saying that the tests were done on rats, and the researchers confuse the development stage of a rat’s brain with the development stages of a human’s brain. The researchers say the work was done on rats that were 12 to 26 weeks old, which they say is the rat equivalent of teenaged years, and their brains are still developing. The senility comes along later, suggesting that teens who use mobile phones now may be wandering around aimlessly lost in a fog of their own confusing by their early thirties. The mobile phone industry responds that the comparison is pointless, because human neurological development is generally done by the time a baby reaches 12-months (not in their teenaged years) – and you don’t hear too many stories of babies chatting away on mobile phones.