Is Technology Making Us Sick?

A primer for the 21st century

Ian Douglas, Matthew Taylor

• Publisher: Thames and Hudson Ltd
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9780500775387
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

The Big Idea shortlisted for series design in the British Design and Production Awards Modern technology has enhanced our lives in numerous ways we can now communicate in real time with friends and colleagues around the world, and do our shopping and banking without leaving home. But, as technology crowds further into our personal lives, is it doing us more harm than good? Are we becoming anxious, depressed and socially isolated, unaware of the manipulating influence of algorithms designed to keep us engaged and to filter the picture of the world we see? Has our online gaming or gambling unwittingly developed into a disturbing addiction? This rigorous and insightful volume assesses the impact of our increased screen time and daily interactions with personal technology on our individual choices, our relationships, and our mental and physical health, and suggests how best to mitigate any adverse effects.

1. Fear of Technology

AElectrosensitivity sufferers such as Jean-Jacque and Emilie sometimes resort to home-made shielding devices such as headscarves, sheets or, in this case, coats, lined with metal mesh or foil shields.

Around the world, up to 13% of the population experiences symptoms of electrosensitivity. The rate of this is highest in Taiwan, and lowest, just 1.5%, in Sweden. Sufferers report a range of problems from headaches and nausea to heart palpitations and depression. They attribute this to the presence of radiation from Wi-Fi hotspots and mobile phones, both masts and handsets.

In addition to these feelings of ill health, many people fear a link between mobile phones and cancer. Microwave radiation has been at the centre of cancer scares since the 1980s, when microwave ovens became more widespread in people’s homes. Regulations to make sure the ovens could not continue to emit radiation when the door was open exacerbated fears, despite reassurances that the rules were intended to prevent people burning themselves. Studies that have found no link between microwave use and cancer, such as the comprehensive survey undertaken by Peter Valberg for Cancer Causes and Control in 1997, have not been enough to dispel the myth. Wi-Fi and mobile phones both use microwave spectrum radio waves, so the association is easy to carry over.

Radio waves, light, Wi-Fi, mobile phone signals and kitchen microwaves are all the same kind of electromagnetic rays. They are different wavelengths and carry different amounts of energy however, meaning Wi-Fi and mobile phone signals cannot achieve the same warming effect as microwaves.

In Taiwan in 2013, a cohort study of 23 million people found no link between cancer and phones. In the same year, a Cancer Research UK-funded study of 791,710 women in Europe reached the same conclusion. Yet individuals continued to be electrosensitive. They genuinely felt ill unless wearing protective clothing, and they felt relief when they moved away from Wi-Fi and mobile phones.

A cohort study takes a group of people who share a characteristic – in this case heavy mobile phone use – and measures certain things about them over time. Unlike a controlled trial there is no control group without the characteristic tested for comparison. They are particularly useful for refuting a cause and effect relationship.

BMany who experience the syndrome have to leave cities and live isolated rural lives away from people using technology and mobile devices that emit radio waves, and protect themselves when they have to visit towns.

Scientists tested whether the symptoms continued when the mobiles and routers were actually emitting something, or just appeared to be. There was no difference. Cancer rates were monitored for spikes in heavy phone users and IT workers: no difference. Mobiles have been ubiquitous for two decades and although brain tumour diagnosis rates have risen, researchers agree that this is down to better detection and reporting rather than an increase in incidence. The radiation given off by Wi-Fi routers and mobile phone masts and handsets is too low powered to harm our DNA and does not cause cancer or other ill health effects.

Routers generate Wi-Fi signals and thus connect wireless devices to the Internet.

Tabloid headlines persist, however, and support groups continue their well-meaning but misguided work, despite the NHS in Britain, the NIH in the USA and cancer research charities publishing guidelines that give evidence-led information. The World Health Organization classification of Wi-Fi in 2011 as a ‘possible risk’ did not help reassure anyone, but it was not intended to mean that any risk was actually present, only that there was some effect shown in tests on animals. Human exposure would never reach the power levels used in those experiments.

AMobile phone masts have become a common feature of urban landscapes. The objections to them are sometimes aesthetic rather than health-based, leading to attempts to disguise them as local flora.

BApple Store sales assistants in Russia happily welcome the latest models of iPhone. Queues still appear at shops all over the world every year when new technology becomes available.

To dismiss electrosensitivity because it is psychological in origin is over-simplistic and more than a little heartless. These people are genuinely suffering. What is really going on here?

It is not the case that all of these people would be feeling ill anyway and are blaming the technology for existing symptoms. They start to feel ill when the technology is introduced and feel better when it is gone. The fact that there is no physical link between their symptoms and their phone, for example, is beside the point. It is not just worry; they are sick and technology caused their ill health, but not in the physically causal way that would make such sickness universal. Why does technology adversely affect some people when others keenly queue up to get their latest dose of progress, and feel nothing but joy when they get it?

ANo evidence on effects peculiar to the latest 5G mobile phone standard has yet been collected, but protesters already claim that new health problems are being felt.

Anxiety is the most common mental illness of all and can have a wide range of causes. Some are physical, some not. Researchers at Harvard in 2012 found that a third of the population will experience anxiety. Together with depression, dysregulated mood, aggression, fatigue and difficulty concentrating, there is a catalogue of mental well-being problems that are reported by sufferers as being in reaction to technology. What is it about the people who do not suffer from electrosensitivity that is inoculating them from it?

Anxiety, in a clinical sense, includes panic attacks, debilitating phobias and a sense of the overwhelming need to escape. The pulse rises, muscles tense and the anxious person becomes vigilant, as if in anticipation of danger.

Dysregulated mood refers to mood swings that the subject cannot control, including anger and outbursts of temper. When dysregulation persists for most of the day, every day, for at least 12 months it can be classified as a clinical disorder.

The electrosensitives, just like the civil servants who blamed the steel nibs for scrivener’s palsy, are displaying a human trait that, when applied in other directions, has been a driver of progress. They are observing an effect and looking around for a pattern to explain it.

BMarches such as this one in Germany in 2019 have coincided with cities such as Brussels, Belgium, and Geneva, Switzerland, delaying their rollouts of the antennas required for 5G reception.

Diverging with the scientific application of pattern spotting, though, they are finding something new and, if it fits with concepts ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• About the Authors
• Other titles of interest
• Contents
• Milestones
• How to Read
• Introduction
• 1. Fear of Technology
• 2. Living with Technology
• 3. Becoming Hooked
• 4. Solutions for Restoring Health
• Conclusion
• Further Reading
• Picture Credits
• Index
• Acknowledgments
• Copyright