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Kids advised to limit cell phone use
A report from Toronto's medical officer of health advises "children, especially pre-adolescent children, (to) use land lines whenever possible, keeping the use of cell phones for essential purposes only, limiting the length of cell phone calls and using headsets or hands-free options, whenever possible."
The agency suggested youths should be protected from potentially harmful cell phone radio frequencies, the Toronto Star reported.
"While scientists were pretty dismissive of any risk years ago, with the accumulation of studies, it appears people who have been using their phones for a long period of time are at greater risk of certain kinds of brain tumors," said Loren Vanderlinden, a Toronto Public Health supervisor who wrote the report.
Industry professionals say cell phones are safe, the newspaper said.
"The state of the science is that there are no health effects," said Marc Choma, a spokesman for the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association.
Copyright 2008 by United Press International
This news arrived on: 07/12/2008
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Posted Comments:
07-17-2008 12:34
Instructor wrote:
Kids advised to limit cell phone use
Parents need to step in to discuss and monitor how and when their kids are using their cell phone. Teachers adhere to the school policy by removing cell phones during class, but only to find that parents can retrieve the phone for their kids on the same date. There seems to be no modification to this cycle.
07-17-2008 08:04
Sister Louise wrote:
limiting cell phone usage
Essentially, I concur with John (UK), but I feel that also pertains to adults, especially young adults who have never had to learn the finer points of social courtesy. We live in an increasingly self-obsessed and -engrossed world. The little courtesies that were enforced even in kindergarten in "my day" are totally foreign now, even to the no longer practicing older adults. This removes a barrier to inappropriate or harmful behavior, thereby leaving society more at-risk, and vulnerable.
When you text-message, there is no eye or voice contact/interaction, so it depersonalizes the message and devalues the humans involved to a certain extent.
When you continuously are gazing at a video screen it DOES change the hardwiring in your brain -- even in adults. Therefore, we have a much shortened attention span, and patience. This leads to volatile outbursts, inaccuracies, etc. There are various studies available on this topic.
And if you are focused continually on your phone, how can you ever notice the roses, let alone stop to smell them?
People (and Life!) are too precious to trivialize in this manner.
When you text-message, there is no eye or voice contact/interaction, so it depersonalizes the message and devalues the humans involved to a certain extent.
When you continuously are gazing at a video screen it DOES change the hardwiring in your brain -- even in adults. Therefore, we have a much shortened attention span, and patience. This leads to volatile outbursts, inaccuracies, etc. There are various studies available on this topic.
And if you are focused continually on your phone, how can you ever notice the roses, let alone stop to smell them?
People (and Life!) are too precious to trivialize in this manner.
07-16-2008 08:26
John U.K. wrote:
Cell phones & kids
Kids should be advised to limit their use of cell phones because of concerns for their social skills. I bet we've all seen youths walking together with one of them looking bored while the other chats away to someone else (perhaps to a 'real' friend?). They also use these devices for far more than telephone calls such that they come to dominate their lives. As fashion must-haves they are getting mugged for them and using them to belittle certain of their peers. They predispose their owners to become anti-social amongst strangers as they sit hooked up to their earphones; they also fail to appreciate that with earphones in, others don't know if they can be heard, so speaking to people without removing them is really rude. They encourage outrageous behaviour in order to have something to film - which is why 'happy-slapping' - the phenomenon of hitting someone to cause a fight - has emerged.
The list goes on. I long for the day when young people are either prohibited from even having them altogether or for people to begin successfully suing the manufacturers for the harm they cause - irrespective of any potential to cause brain tumors. In fact, maybe you have to have a brain tumor to want a cell phone in the first place!
The list goes on. I long for the day when young people are either prohibited from even having them altogether or for people to begin successfully suing the manufacturers for the harm they cause - irrespective of any potential to cause brain tumors. In fact, maybe you have to have a brain tumor to want a cell phone in the first place!
07-16-2008 02:35
wrote:
Better start having people sign waivers for cell phone companies or pretty soon they will start suing the companies if anyone ever gets cancer in their head, and cell phone will be banned.
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