This week’s Science Wednesday post focuses on cell phone use among children.
The concern over mobile phone usage and radiation damage is ongoing. As mobile phones are becoming more prevalent among the younger generation (teens, tweens, and even younger), the need to determine the safety of these devices is becoming more important. When I was in college in the 1990s, I’d say 1% of my friends had mobile phones. Now, children at my sons’ elementary school carry cell phones and are on them both before and after school.
Last week, the Times Online published an article describing new measures that the French government has enacted in order to help protect the youth of the country.
”Mobile telephones are to be banned from French primary schools, and operators must offer handsets that allow only text messages, under government measures to reduce the health risk to children.
Companies will also be required to supply phones that work only with headsets, to limit the danger to the brain from electromagnetic radiation, Rosalyne Bachelot, the Health Minister, said.”
Despite this new requirement, advocacy organizations on one side are claiming that the restrictions don’t go far enough to protect our children while groups on the opposite side claim that this is ludicrous and there is no definitive link between mobile phone transmitters and health concerns.
My children don’t have mobile phones, but they are young. Since I’m a stay-at-home-mom (well, I work from home, too) I don’t see a reason for them to have a phone – even if they were older.
I’ve read a lot of conflicting studies on the safety of cell phone use, both by adults and children, and for me, I’m still not 100% convinced either way. Now I ask you, the readers of Raising Them Green, what do you think of cell phone use by children? Does your child have a phone? If so, what were your reasons for purchasing a phone?
Photo by woodleywonderworks
