Cellphones

Cellphones are growing in popularity every year. Smartphones enable users to call, text and use the internet from almost anywhere there is a cellphone signal. From the convenience of a piece of equipment that fits in your pocket, you can communicate and receive news from anywhere in the world. According to the Pew Research Center, nearly 90 percent of Americans own a cellphone and two-thirds of those are smart phones.1

The cellphone has become the most rapidly accepted device in the history of consumer technology. Pew attributes the rise in popularity to the development and accessibility of smartphones.2 Unfortunately, this connectivity to a world well outside your physical boundaries places you in danger of disconnecting from what is real and important in your immediate environment. The New York Times observes:3

"The near-universal access to digital technology, starting at ever younger ages, is transforming modern society in ways that can have negative effects on physical and mental health, neurological development and personal relationships, not to mention safety on our roads and sidewalks."

Easy access to technology has led people to take their smartphones everywhere without a second thought, including the kitchen, doctor's office, dinner table and bathroom. This rise in usage increases your potential risk to over exposure to electromagnetic field (EMF) radiation and your exposure to a device that may carry nearly 17,000 bacterial genetic copies.4

Your Cellphone Likely Carries 10 Times More Germs Than a Toilet Seat

Several studies have demonstrated contamination of mobile phones in a hospital, but little information about bacterial contamination on cellphones in the community has been gathered. Researchers were interested in quantifying the number of bacteria residing on secondary school students' mobile phones, as this is a population that has made smartphones an intimate part of their everyday life.

Samples were collected from 27 mobile phones of students aged 16 to 18, and bacterial colonies were counted. Researchers found that all phones had bacterial contamination, which was different from the results of previous studies.5 In this study, a high average count of microbes was found on each of the phones, with more than 20 different species detected.6

Interestingly, while the researchers identified several strains of bacteria that are potentially pathogenic, they did not identify a significant amount of bacteria that would indicate fecal contamination, despite the fact that most students took their phone with them into the bathroom. The researchers concluded:7

"Our study showed high level contamination of secondary school students' mobile phones with potentially pathogenic bacteria to be common, and we hypothesize that this may play a role in the spread of infectious agents in the community. However, based on our results, the mobile phones of secondary school students do not appear to be considerable vectors for the spread of antibacterial resistance."

Although the study had a small sample size, the results do confirm that bringing your cellphone from bathroom to the dinner table potentially increases your risk of spreading germs and illness. However, the majority of the bacterial contamination on the phones was the result of transfer of microbes normally found on your skin, to the surface of the phone.8  For instance, Staphylococcus bacteria, normally found on skin, may be present on your phone, but not typically the type that triggers a staph infection.

Cellphone Usage Rising, and so Is Addiction

Even when you aren't using or touching your cellphone, it may be distracting you from your immediate tasks. A study using a group of more than 50 college students found that performance in complex tasks was worse when the participant could see a cellphone present, whether it was the study leader's phone or their own, as compared to the performance of tasks when no cellphone was visible.9

This continued attention and reliance on digital technology has in part driven the advancement that led from a relatively static internet of the early 2000s to websites that must be mobile-ready or lose customers. According to Pew, nearly 10 percent of Americans now connect to the internet at home using only their smartphone, and do not have traditional broadband service.10 This aligns with the goals of companies doing business online that want your increased attention on their products and services.

Programmers have achieved a process they call "brain hacking"11 that increases your desire to pay attention to your smartphone. They incorporate information from neuropsychology into the development of website interfaces that increase your interaction.

For instance, getting likes on Facebook, or "streaks" on Snapchat are designed to lengthen your engagement with the program and increase your desire to return. A combination of these factors has led to a dependence or addiction to the internet that affected 6 percent of the world population in 2014.12

While this number may not seem significant on the surface, compare it against a report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime that stated 3.5 to 7 percent of the world population between 15 and 64 years had used an illicit drug in the past year.13 The problems with overuse and abuse of cellphones lead to sleep disturbances, anxiety, stress and depression,14 as well as an increased exposure to EMF radiation, placing your physical health in greater danger.

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