Radiation from cellphones/laptops/etc.

[Mouthwash]

Is there a consensus on how dangerous the radiation produced by everyday electronic devices is? Primarily laptops? There are a ton of websites saying different things about this, and I have no way of knowing what to believe. Safety regulations aren't comforting either- you may know what I mean if you've ever had chips that were listed as *two* servings per bag.

 

[Narz]

I think from microwaves is 10 or 100x stronger. Anyway considering some people are using their cell phones 8 or more hours per day we should be seeing spikes in cancer rates but we're not.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Is it an Apple ? Then your at high risk of setting your crotch on fire
I would suggest getting a PC immediately

 

[W|M]

The radiation they release is non-ionizing, so it's not dangerous.

 

[Bamspeedy]

In an effort to stop construction of a cell phone tower in someone's back yard, I was offered to sign a petition. Part of the guy's argument was ONE study in Europe that show cell phone towers increased cancer. American Cancer Society says that's unlikely to happen, and explains why.

The petition succeeded, I don't know how much his hysteria helped, and how much was because the tower was built too close to the town's tiny airport (3 miles is the limit, the tower is 2.9 miles away, the guy was worried the cell phone companies application for an exemption would be accepted). So since the tower was half built, it stayed, and I can see a half-built tower every day for the last year and a half.

 

[Kozmos]

Even if they did cause cancer would you stop using them?

 

[Mouthwash]

Even if they did cause cancer would you stop using them?

For a laptop, I would keep eight feet away and use a projector screen. A cellphone I'd use it sparingly and always on speaker.

 

[Kozmos]

Doesn't sound very affordable or practical. What about wi-fi signals?

 

[warpus]

Can't you just look up how much radiation these devices give off, and then cross-reference a safety chart which lists radiation amounts and how much damage they cause?

 

[AppleDumplingHead]

Are people who are afraid of this also against medical xrays, sunbathing and air travel? What about alcohol, red meat and sex?

If you have a specific predisposition, you're going to get cancer if you're a solitary, sober vegetarian, living in a power-less cabin in northern Canada.

 

[Kozmos]

People get fatal heart attacks when they have low blood pressure, healthy diet, regular exercise and no history of prior related diseases. It's just the breaks of personal biology.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

People get fatal heart attacks when they have low blood pressure, healthy diet, regular exercise and no history of prior related diseases. It's just the breaks of personal biology.

That doesn't answer OP's question though.

The answer is that so far, we don't have any evidence that they increase cancer risk to any measurable degree, and thus we have no reason to believe that cancer is more likely than them causing cats to gang attack people in the Amazon.

As Narz points out, considering common usage in many regions you would expect a global increase in cancer rate per person if they did cause it. That alone wouldn't prove cell phones are the cause, but the absence of an increase in rate compared to pre cell phone times makes it very unlikely (you'd need a nearly perfectly offsetting cancer rate decreaser to have developed concurrently).

 

[Kozmos]

OP is a known skeptic and contrarian. If he doesn't trust the established practices and measurements I'm assuming he won't trust us so I'm curious how he would go about prosecuting his radiation free existence. Mostly I am just annoyed by a similar example locally to what Bamspeedy said, a bunch of parents reading some dubious science and throwing a hissy fit about the new cell tower with muh children and cansur resulting in its cancellation.
Werner Herzog's latest documentary Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World also details a group of people who think they have electromagnetic hypersensitivity so they went to live in some remote backwoods region where scientist use the lack of other EM noise to listen to space transmissions. I

 

[Lexicus]

OP is a known skeptic and contrarian.

Replace skeptic with "skeptic" and this is spot-on. Perhaps he should turn to noted Maoist Jill Stein for answers.

 

[warpus]

Well you could easily just walk around wrapped in tinfoil. It will keep the radiation away as well as the alien mind control rays.

 

[Arakhor]

Obligatory Veritasium videos:

Frequent flying is more dangerous than using TVs or mobile phones, as cabin crew are classed as radiation workers due to the constant exposure to high-atmosphere ionising cosmic rays.

 

[Kozmos]

Replace skeptic with "skeptic" and this is spot-on. Perhaps he should turn to noted Maoist Jill Stein for answers.

Well it's the magical belief lottery. Everyone thinks they got the winning hand and everyone else is an idiot. I don't even trust what my own brain tells me since I have my fair share of actual confabulated experiences so I always got to have other people verify things for me.

EDIT: To tie into above, they've actually found frequent flying and jet-lag does slight brain damage too, but I can't recall the exact mechanism of it.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

It is very likely that your parents spent large amounts of time sitting in front of a television that was continuously shooting them with an electron gun. No modern electronic device pumps it to you like those early TV sets did, and yet you are not a mutant. I wouldn't worry.

 

[uppi]

The radiation they release is non-ionizing, so it's not dangerous.

It is not that simple. No matter whether the radiation is ionizing or not, it is always the dosage that matters (although the safe dosage for ionizing radiation is much lower). In case of laptops and cell phones, the dosage is so low that no significant adverse effects have been observed.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Hold up...what is this "non-ionizing" radiation?