Electronic Smog: Yet Another Reason to Spend More Time Outdoors
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 09.11.07
Your parents always told you that staying indoors with your face glued to the TV set would do little to improve your health. Well, it looks like they finally have some evidence to back up their claims: a new study conducted by scientists at the Imperial College London has demonstrated that electrical fields from various electronic devices - including computers and televisions - can cause asthma, influenza and several other respiratory diseases. This so-called "electro-smog" has long been denounced by campaigners worried about the rapid proliferation of cell phones, Wi-Fi systems and other gizmos in our increasingly connected society.
The team of researchers found that electrical fields given off by the devices could charge millions of tiny particles in the air, including bacteria, allergens and pollutants. The charge made it easier for them to adhere to the tissue of the lung and respiratory tract, prompting infections and a host of debilitating diseases. Gadgets emitting high electrical fields were the greatest source of concern: the most charged particles would typically hit tissues with the highest speed, causing them to become deformed and to stick more stubbornly.
Furthermore, the scientists also found that the fields could reduce concentrations of charged oxygen - which, when absorbed by the human body, can ameliorate biological functions and eliminate pathogens.
Aside from the obvious (don't spend all your time with your face glued to the monitor), they suggested that people ensure that all their electrical equipment be earthed, that they avoid synthetic materials and that they unplug devices not being used. Shouldn't be too hard to follow, right?
Via ::The Independent: Deep-sea vents 'no climate haven' (newspaper), ::Celsias: Electronic Smog Can Damage Your Health (blog)
See also: ::E-waste Recycling is Serious Health Threat in China, ::Watching Your Wd/wh
Image courtesy of nateOne via flickr
This information comes from a poorly constructed study. The study lists no methodology, descriptive statistics, and confidence intervals. In other words I wouldn't trust the information at all. Also they seem to be confusing causation with correlation.
The two are vastly different and just because you have a correlation doesn't mean you have causality. I would expect there to be a correlation between electronic usage and asmatic conditions. Because those that use electronics more (specifically gaming consoles, TVs, and computers) will tend to get less exercise. Less exercise leads to obesity and consequently weaker lungs and heart.
Wow. Just wow. Maybe you should screen your pseudoscience articles more effectively.
In defense of Jeremy for posting this (not in defense of the study methodology) I'd like to mention that as a person with lifelong allergies to pollens, mold, and house dusts, I long ago came to realize that dust control was the key to my health and that electronic devices figured heavily in my ability to do that.
Back in the early 1980's, with my old Compaq "transportable" (that weighed about 50 pounds), I noticed how rapidly dust built up on the 9x9 screen and around my keyboard. I also noted that after a hour of use that I would begin to sneeze and have irritated eyes- particularly pronounced when pollen was dense and coming in from open windows. After considerable research (this is pre-world wide web) I was able to piece together the mechanisms for my enhanced allergic response.
When operated, CPU's and fan-cooled PCBs (more on this later) are relatively electro-positive compared to surrounding objects and air, hence they attract dust and plate it out on the cases and screens and onto adjacent furniture. Run your fingers on a TV screen and the proof is on your fingers. No need for scientific investigation on this aspect.
Here's the deal. Not only does the device concentrate sensitizing dusts from normal air flows into the zone where the operator sites and breaths, but after hours of contacting the keyboard, etc, the operator also become relatively more electro-positive than other objects in the room. As the human respires air being drawn across the mouth and eyes, into the nose, plates dust out rapidly on the mucosa, where allergic response is provoked. You may test this phenomena directly with cool smoke from a smoldering bit of tissue. It is also instructive to wet the palm of your hand slightly and put is about a centimeter from a TV screen that has been operating for a while. The cooling effect is from the so-called "ionic wind" which means that the charged surface of the TV is more rapidly attracting polar water vapor away from your skin, which is relatively electro-negative compared to the TV screen.
My solution was to purchase two negative ion generators, locating one on each side of the PC. Problem solved and I never again had to wipe the dust off the glass.
As promised above. The reason that CPU fans are involved in attracting dust is that air is a conductor and the CPU's internal shielding is also. Electromagnetic fields are set up inside the CPU by fans and hard drives. Move a conductor across a magnetic field and you generate a static charge, This causes dust exiting the device to be relatively electro-positive and to plate out aggressively on the nearest conductive and electronegative surface -like your eyes.
If you have ever been in an office building with forced air heating ducts and noticed the black streaks on the ceiling emanating from the heating vent, this is the explanation. Dry heated air is flowing rapidly through metal ductwork, and turning a corner just prior to discharge into the room, where the dust being carried along finds the nearest electronegative surface to plate out on. It is no coincidence that ductwork needs to be cleaned out of accumulated dust after years of use.
This concludes my post -length way of saying that I find this study to be highly plausible in its conclusions, although perhaps not so much in what is hypothesized as causative to the human response to the phenomena.