Health Hazards Faced by the Youth due to Cell Phones

Teenagers use cell phones more than any other age group. You can see them constantly texting, talking on the phone, playing cell phone games, listening to music, or simply fiddling with their cell phones all day long. I am myself a teenager and I begin to panic when I can’t feel my cell phone in my pocket! Indeed, cell phones have become a very important part of my life and the life of every teenager. It would be right to say that a teenager feels handicapped without their cell phone.

Very few people are aware of the hazards of using cell phones excessively. The youth are most affected, since they use cell phones the most.

Cell phone radiation:

The electromagnetic radiation that is sent and received continuously from a cell phone is known to have an effect on the human body. Of course, cell phone features and technologies are progressing at a much more rapid pace than the research on health hazards these technologies could cause. There is not yet any conclusive evidence that the electromagnetic radiation associated with cell phones could cause cancer or similar terminal diseases, but there is nevertheless suspicion. The suspicion comes from studies that show that the radiation alters the arrangement of proteins in living cells. Studies have shown that the radiation could cause a raise in blood pressure during use, direct brain warming and fatigue after prolonged use.

On an average, a teenager talks for two hours a day on a cell phone. Sometimes, teenagers talk for hours on end. They are constantly exposed to the radiation that is in no way doing any good to their health.

Addiction effects:

I am a teenager and can provide substantial information on the addiction I notice among my friends.

A teenager normally talks to their boyfriend/girlfriend on the phone all night. They start their talk once everyone else in the house goes to sleep, normally around 11 or 12 at night, and they can continue talking for hours on end, finally hanging up at around 4 or 5 in the morning. Then, they get 2 to 3 hours of sleep, and have to wake up at 6 or 7 in the morning to go to school or college. Sleep deprivation day after day, month after month, causes a whole range of problems, especially amongst teenagers.

A growing body requires sound sleep of at least 8 hours a night. A sleep deprived body suffers from fatigue, impaired physical and mental performance, weight loss or weight gain and clumsiness. The reflex action is considerably slowed, and the individual feels it’s a great chore to even think. Doing everything becomes that much harder. For a teenager, this implies bad grades in school or college and lesser participation in extra curricular activities, and overall lesser growth of personality. They tend to become clumsy human beings when they grow up.

Teenagers don’t really keep their conversations crisp and short. Their world is such that there is so much to talk about! And what better way to convey every detail of their day to their friends, than that handy lump of metal, the cell phone! Besides talking on the phone, teenagers love to text. Teenagers are known to send even 100 text messages a day to their friends. They tend to be texting all day long and feel like doing nothing else.

A cell phone really takes away a considerable time of a teenager’s day – time that they could instead spend doing other productive things or good physical exercise – like taking a walk, for example. Cell phones, like the television, keep them from doing any physical activity, or for that matter, any activity at all. It is always nice to be social, but to be social to the point where you can’t live without that lump of metal is not a nice thing for a healthy life. What’s more, the cell phone addiction moulds lazy teenagers who may suffer from obesity due to lack of physical activity over a prolonged period of time.

Teenagers seem to completely give up their self control to their cell phones and get overcome by the connectivity it offers them. There is a dire need for them to realize the health hazards cell phones could cause, and also how much they’re missing out in life because they’re not able to wrench their eyes away from the tiny screens of their cell phones.

Harshini Shanker

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