DigiKids: Are Cell Phones and Wi-Fi Threats to Our Kids’ Health?

This is part of a series of occasional articles exploring the new terrain of parenting today. By helping you make sense of today’s parenting challenges, questions and concerns, we hope you’ll feel more comfortable, confident and supported in your child-rearing efforts. – The Editors

By Christina Elston

When our 13-year-old started junior high last year, we bought her a cell phone so that we could be in touch in case of an emergency. We warned her: “This is not a toy.”

In Britain, the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) would have offered a sterner caution. This past January, the organization – part of the country’s Health Protection Agency – recommended that kids ages 9 to 14 minimize cell-phone use as much as possible, and that children under age 8 not use them at all.

“I don’t think we can put our hands on our hearts and say mobile phones are safe,” NRPB Chairman Sir William Steward said at the time.

But, despite this warning and plenty of discussion in the media about a possible link between cell-phone use and brain tumors, most large-scale studies suggest that cell phones are, indeed, safe.

And what about wireless networks – otherwise known as “wi-fi”? While there isn’t a lot of research available on the health risks of these networks – which allow computer users to access the Internet wirelessly in coffee shops, hotels, airports and other public places as well as at home – studies so far suggest that exposure to wireless networks may carry even less risk than exposure to cell phones.

What We Know

The main concern among those who worry about wireless technology’s effects on our health is the radiofrequency (or “RF”) radiation that cell phones and wireless networks use to carry our communications. These are the same type of waves that bring us radio and television broadcasts, and the same ones your microwave uses to bake your potato.

Thermal Risks? – At high enough levels, RF energy can heat body tissue and cause what the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) calls “thermal effects,” including blindness and sterility. But this level of exposure is more commonly an occupational hazard – for those who work in direct contact with TV or radio antennae – than a risk to the general public.

The FCC measures RF radiation according to the amount that the body absorbs, the “specific absorption rate” (SAR). FCC regulators consider the maximum safe SAR for whole-body exposure to be 4 watts per kilogram of body tissue, and they require mobile-phone manufacturers to demonstrate that the body will not absorb more than 1.6 watts per kilogram from their products. (For more information on your cell phone’s SAR, check out www.fda.gov/cellphones.)