MARTIN ROOSLI - Children and mobile technology

Summary

Professor Martin Rosely's lecture delves into the impact of mobile technology on children, focusing on the effects of electromagnetic fields and potential addiction. Utilizing data from Swiss and South African studies, he explores associations between mobile phone use, cognitive functions, health issues, and behavioral changes in adolescents. The study reveals that while moderate use may enhance cognitive abilities, excessive use could lead to sleep disturbances and decreased health-related quality of life, suggesting a need for balanced e-media engagement.

Takeaways

• 📲 Mobile phone technology, particularly its effects on children and adolescents, is a significant focus, with concerns about electromagnetic fields, addiction, and other problematic aspects of e-media use.
• 🧠 The study conducted in Switzerland, named 'Hermes', aimed to explore the impact of mobile phone use on adolescent behavior, cognitive functions, and health disturbances like headaches and sleep issues.
• 📡 Mobile phones emit radio frequency microwaves, which are known for their heating effects, and regulatory limits are set to prevent dangerous levels of exposure.
• 🧐 The absorption of mobile phone radiation varies with frequency and size, with children's brains potentially being more affected due to their smaller size and higher relative depth of exposure.
• 📉 A longitudinal study involving Swiss and South African adolescents found associations between mobile phone use and various health issues, but the causality remains unclear.
• 📱 The most significant source of electromagnetic field exposure to the brain comes from mobile phone calls, contributing to 94% of the cumulative radiation absorbed by the brain.
• 🤔 The study suggests that high doses of electromagnetic fields, possibly due to low connection quality and maximum power transmission, could affect figural memory development in adolescents.
• 🛑 Cross-sectional analysis showed that low mobile phone use was associated with a higher quality of life, while high social media use on mobile phones was linked to lower well-being scores.
• 🌐 A study in South Africa found that high mobile phone use, especially when causing nighttime disturbances, was associated with increased sleep disturbances and headaches.
• 📈 Moderate mobile phone use was found to be beneficial for cognitive functions, suggesting that some exposure may improve information access and be useful for education.
• 🚫 The potential non-radiation effects of e-media, such as content consumption and addiction, are likely more significant than any direct effects from electromagnetic fields.

Q & A

Who is the speaker in the provided transcript?

The speaker is Martin Rosely, a professor for environmental epidemiology at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute.

What is the main topic of the lecture?

The main topic of the lecture is the impact of mobile technology on children, covering aspects such as electromagnetic fields, addiction, and other problematic aspects of e-media use.

What are the two studies mentioned in the lecture?

The two studies mentioned are conducted in Switzerland and South Africa, both focusing on the effects of mobile phone use on adolescents.

What is the term 'HERMES' an acronym for in the context of the Swiss study?

HERMES stands for 'House Effects Related to Mobile phone use in Adolescence,' and it was chosen because Hermes is the code of communication and trade, fitting the mobile phone study.

What type of study design was used in the Swiss study?

The Swiss study used a longitudinal study design, specifically a prospective cohort study, with two separate sub-studies conducted in 2012 and 2014.

What age group were the participants in the Swiss study?

The participants in the Swiss study were seventh to eighth-grade students, mostly between 13 and 14 years old at the time of recruitment.

What are the main sources of electromagnetic field exposure for adolescents according to the study?

The main sources of electromagnetic field exposure for adolescents are calls made on mobile phones and the use of DECT phones, contributing to 94% of the cumulative absorbed radiation to the brain.

What is the concern regarding the developing brain and mobile technology use?

The concern is that the developing brain, which continues to reorganize and develop until the age of 16, may be affected by the physical radiation from mobile technology or the content consumed through it.

What findings did the study have regarding the impact of mobile phone use on cognitive functions?

The study found that the cumulative dose of electromagnetic fields absorbed by the brain had a slight effect on figural memory, with a decrease in its development over one year in relation to the absorbed dose.

What was the association between mobile phone use and health-related quality of life?

The study found that low use of mobile phones was related to a positive health-related quality of life, while high social use and being woken up by mobile phones at night were associated with sleep disturbances, headaches, and lower scores in various health-related aspects.

What conclusions did the speaker draw about the effects of e-media use on adolescents?

The speaker concluded that a vigilant balance is needed to profit from the beneficial effects of moderate e-media use on cognition while preventing negative side effects on health-related quality of life, sleep disturbance, and headache severity.

What is the current research status on the link between mobile phone use and brain tumors in children?

The current research, including a multi-center case-control study involving Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian researchers, has not found an increased risk of brain tumors associated with mobile phone use among adolescents.

What is the speaker's final take on the relevance of electromagnetic fields from mobile phones compared to non-radiation effects?

The speaker suggests that non-radiation effects of e-media are most likely more relevant than potential effects from electromagnetic fields, emphasizing the importance of considering content, distraction, and behavioral impacts of mobile technology use.

Outlines

00:00

📱 Mobile Technology and Adolescent Health

Professor Martin Rosely introduces a lecture on the impact of mobile technology on children, focusing on electromagnetic fields, addiction, and other issues related to e-media use. He discusses two studies conducted in Switzerland and South Africa involving adolescents. The studies aim to explore the relationship between obesity, inattention, fatigue, myopia, depression, headache, and e-media use, highlighting the difficulty in determining causality with cross-sectional data. The Swiss study, named 'Hermes' after the Greek god of communication, is a longitudinal, prospective cohort study examining the effects of mobile phone use on adolescent behavior and health, including cognitive functions and disturbances like headaches and sleep issues.

05:01

🧠 Electromagnetic Field Exposure and Adolescent Brain Development

The lecture continues with an exploration of the types of electromagnetic fields emitted by mobile phones, emphasizing the heating effects of radio frequency microwaves. It explains that absorption of these fields depends on frequency and size, noting that children's brains absorb radiation differently due to their size. The study calculated the cumulative brain dose and whole-body dose for participants, finding that mobile phone calls and DECT phones contribute significantly to brain radiation absorption. The potential impact of mobile technology on the developing adolescent brain is also discussed, along with the use of latent class analysis to identify different user types, such as gamers and high social media users. The study found an association between the physical dose of electromagnetic fields and figural memory development, suggesting that high doses could affect memory processes.

10:01

🌐 Mobile Phone Use and Health-Related Quality of Life

This section delves into the relationship between mobile phone use and health-related quality of life, including sleep disturbances and headaches. Cross-sectional analysis revealed that low mobile use was associated with a better quality of life, while high social media use was linked to lower scores in various health aspects. The study in South Africa corroborated these findings, showing that high mobile use, especially when interrupted at night, led to increased sleep disturbances and headaches. Interestingly, cognitive tests indicated that moderate mobile phone use might be beneficial for cognitive functions, suggesting a need for a balanced approach to mobile use in education.

15:03

🏥 Research on Mobile Phones and Brain Tumor Risk

The final part of the lecture addresses concerns about the potential link between mobile phone use and brain tumors. A multi-center case-control study involving researchers from Denmark, Sweden, and Norway found no increased risk of brain tumors associated with mobile phone use. Time trend analysis also did not show an increase in brain tumor incidence, which would be expected if mobile phone use posed a significant risk. The lecture concludes by emphasizing the complexity of the relationship between e-media use and health, suggesting that non-radiation effects, such as content and distraction, are likely more relevant than potential electromagnetic field effects. It also highlights the importance of considering reverse causality and confounding factors in understanding the impact of mobile technology on adolescents.

Keywords

💡Environmental Epidemiology

Environmental epidemiology is the study of the distribution and determinants of health-related states or events in relation to the environment, both natural and built. In the video, Martin Rosely, a professor in this field, discusses the impact of mobile technology on children, which is a part of understanding how environmental factors, such as exposure to electromagnetic fields from mobile phones, can affect health.

💡Electromagnetic Fields (EMF)

Electromagnetic fields are invisible areas of energy, often generated by electrical devices, that can have a heating effect on living tissues. The video explores the potential effects of EMF from mobile phones on adolescents' cognitive functions and health, such as sleep disturbances and headaches. The study mentioned in the script investigates whether exposure to these fields from mobile phone use affects adolescent behavior and health.

💡Mobile Technology

Mobile technology refers to devices and services that can be used on the move, such as smartphones and mobile internet access. The video discusses the various aspects of mobile phone technology, including its potential negative effects on children's health and behavior, such as addiction and exposure to EMFs, as well as its potential benefits for cognitive functions.

💡Addiction

Addiction, in the context of the video, refers to the potential for children and adolescents to become overly reliant on or excessively use mobile technology, which can lead to problems such as inattention, fatigue, and other health issues. The script mentions addiction as one of the problematic aspects of e-media use that the lecture aims to address.

💡Obesity

Obesity is a medical condition involving excessive body fat to the extent that health may be negatively affected. The video script mentions studies that have shown a cross-sectional association between obesity and e-media use, suggesting that there may be a link between the two, although the direction of the relationship is not clear.

💡Cross-Sectional Association

A cross-sectional association refers to a statistical relationship observed at a single point in time between two or more variables. In the script, it is mentioned that there is a cross-sectional association between obesity and e-media use, indicating a correlation, but not necessarily a causal relationship.

💡Longitudinal Study

A longitudinal study is a type of research design where data is collected on the same subjects over a long period. The video describes a longitudinal study conducted in Switzerland to explore the effects of mobile phone use on adolescents, including the impact of EMF exposure on cognitive functions and health.

💡Cognitive Functions

Cognitive functions refer to the mental processes involved in acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses. The video discusses the potential impact of mobile phone use and EMF exposure on adolescents' cognitive functions, such as memory, which was measured in the study mentioned in the script.

💡Health-Related Quality of Life

Health-related quality of life is a measure of how an individual's health affects their overall well-being and ability to function. The script mentions that high mobile phone use, particularly at night, can negatively impact adolescents' health-related quality of life, including aspects such as sleep disturbances and headaches.

💡Latent Class Analysis

Latent class analysis is a statistical method used to identify distinct subgroups within a population based on patterns of behavior or characteristics. In the video, this method was used to differentiate between different user types, such as gamers, medium users, low users, and high social users, to understand their mobile phone use patterns and their potential impact on health and cognitive functions.

💡Reverse Causality

Reverse causality is the situation where the presumed cause is actually an effect, or where there is a feedback loop between two variables. The script suggests that the associations observed between mobile phone use and symptoms or behaviors may be due to reverse causality, meaning that the problems might lead to increased mobile phone use rather than the other way around.

Highlights

Lecture by Martin Rosely on the effects of mobile technology on children, including electromagnetic fields and addiction.

Use of data from two studies conducted in Switzerland and South Africa involving adolescents.

Cross-sectional associations found between obesity, inattention, fatigue, myopia, depression, and headache with e-media use.

The difficulty in determining causality between e-media use and health issues in adolescents.

Introduction of the HERMES study focusing on mobile phone use effects on adolescent behavior and health.

Longitudinal study design of the Swiss study with repeated examinations of students.

Inclusion of surveys, memory testing, and exposure assessment in the study methodology.

Differentiation between various types of electromagnetic fields and their effects.

The heating effect of mobile phone radiation and its regulation to prevent harmful levels.

The higher relative depth of mobile phone radiation exposure in children due to smaller brain size.

The significant contribution of mobile phone and cordless phone calls to cumulative brain radiation dose.

The developing brain's vulnerability to the effects of mobile technology use.

Use of latent class analysis to identify different user types based on mobile device usage patterns.

Findings that high cumulative brain dose from mobile phones affects figural memory development in adolescents.

Association between low mobile phone use and positive health-related quality of life in cross-sectional analysis.

Observations from South African study on high mobile phone use correlating with sleep disturbance and headaches.

Cognitive test results indicating potential benefits of moderate mobile phone use for adolescents.

Conclusion emphasizing the need for a balance between beneficial and negative effects of e-media use in education.

Discussion on the potential risk of brain tumors from mobile phone use and findings from a multi-center study.

The complexity of the relationship between e-media use, cognitive function, behavior, and health.

The importance of considering non-radiation effects and potential confounding factors in e-media use studies.

The need for education on the avoidance of nighttime mobile phone use and its impact on health.

Transcripts

welcome

everybody my name is martin rosely

i'm professor for environmental

epidemiology

at the swiss tropical and public health

institute

in the next few minutes i will give a

lecture about

children and mobile technology so we

will

address different aspects of mobile

phone technology

and its effect like electromagnetic

fields

or addiction or other problematic

aspects of e-media use

i will use data from two studies that we

have conducted

one in switzerland and one in south

africa

both have been conducted in adolescence

many more studies have already shown

cross-sectional association between

obesity and immediate use or

inattention fatigue myopia

depression or headache but it's always

difficult with cross-sectional

associations we do not know what is the

hand

and what is the egg so does obesity

makes people using e-media differently

or has e-media use an effect

on the fatigue of adolescence

so that is something we wanted to

explore

in a study in switzerland this was the

so-called

hermestoli house effects related to

mobile phone

use in adolescence hermes is the code of

communication

and the code of trade so we thought

it fits very well to a mobile phone

study and usually you see these pictures

of hermes

carrying something in the head and

nowadays we know

this must be a smartphone

and the main question and the main

idea behind this study was to explore

whether exposure from

better electromagnetic field exposure

from mobile phone

or where the mobile phone use per se is

affecting the behavior of adolescents

cognitive functions or health

disturbance

like headache or sleep disturbances

this is a longitudinal study a

prospective cohort study

it consisted out of two separate

sub-studies

both at the baseline the first study in

2012

the other one in 2014 and the year later

the same students were examined

again students were seventh to 8th grade

so most

of them were between 13 and 14 years

at the date of recruitment and we have

done

several surveys they asked about mobile

phone news and general media use

about social and demographic factors and

have

questionnaire and computerized memory

testing

we also did a lot of exposure assessment

including modeling

and obtaining operate the data from

these

adolescents to have objective data on

how much they use their mobile phone

and also the parents filled in a survey

where we got

additional relevant information for our

data analysis

but let us first talk about

electromagnetic fields

what type of exposure are we dealing

with

so mobile phones emit in the radio

frequency microwave

frequency range so typically this is a

few hundred megahertz

up to a few gigahertz that is used for

this type of communication

and it's well known that this type of

microwave radiation has a heating effect

this is well investigated

and is taken into account in the

regulatory limits

so as long as you are below the

regulatory limits such

heating effects will not occur at the

dangerous level you also have other

electromagnetic fields like extremely

low frequency fields

this is related to use of currency

we have infrared which makes also

warming

and then we have the visible light the

ultraviolet

and of course the ionizing radiation

which is known to cause

cancer for instance the x-ray used for

medical diagnostics

so it's important to realize that

absorption depends on the frequency and

the size

so we see that very clearly in and in

the old

type of antenna that has used different

size

to receive the different

tb programs that were transmitted on

slightly different frequency

and we can also see that in children

that the absorption frequency

is slightly different for children than

for adults

but in general it's still relatively

similar so

you wouldn't expect completely different

absorptions

so here you see a brain a cross-section

of a brain

and what is clear mobile phone radiation

penetrates to some extent

into the brain and obviously the smaller

the brain

so the smaller the child the relative

depth is higher that is achieved by this

type of radiation

so if you look into the inner part of

the brain the children will be exposed

to higher levels

like than adults

in our study we looked what is the most

relevant

source in daily life and we calculated

the cumulative brain dose of our static

participants

and also the whole body though so what

is absorbed by the whole body

and what we see the most important

factors for the brain those are calls by

the mobile phones

also our study participants did not talk

a lot on the phones

a few minutes a day not more and the

second

important part are dect phones so these

are cordless phones

both together contribute 94

of the cumulative absorb the radiation

of the brain here on the right side of

this very

um slight line you can see the so-called

far-field or

environmental sources like radio tower

or downlink is considered to be

mobile phone base station towers

and you see only six percent of the

absorbed radiation originates from these

type of sources

and even if you go to the whole body

then maybe

calling by a mobile phone or cordless

phone is not that important

anymore but then the students these

adolescents used mobile phones a lot

for data transmission for surfing

browsing the internet

and so still 91 of the absorbed

radiation

comes from the own device whereas only

nine percent

are from environmental sources

another important aspects to consider

when we talk about

children and mobile technology is the

developing brain

and the brain is developing quite long

so you see

here even in the age of 12 to 16

the brain is reorganized there are still

developments

so there's some concern that then

children

still can be affected by mobile

technology use

b the physical radiation or be it

just the content of what they consume

and how they consume their the content

in our study we have used a

clustering method the latent class

analysis

to differentiate between different

user types so we had in yellow the

gamers

so they use mostly mobile devices

e-media devices

for playing games then we had the medium

users in green so they use everything a

little bit

then those who low use who do very

little

calls on the mobile phone but still do

text message and and so on

and then we have this uh students

they have a call preference so they use

mobile phones mostly for calling

but not a lot of other activities and

then

high social use is in blue so they use a

lot of social network

like facebook or twitter and on their

mobile phone you wouldn't be surprised

that gamers are mostly boys 99

in our samples that low use was

only prevalent in the first study in

2012 and 2013

whereas a few years later usage was much

higher

the call preference was also mainly in

the sample one

after that smartphones has been more

used also for other activities

and high social use is something which

is

mainly done by girls what we then have

seen in our data analysis

indeed that the cumulative

dose to the brain the physical dose

has an effect on the figural memory so

we found that the figural memory

the development of figural memory over

one year

was slightly decreased in relation

to the emf dose absorbed by the brain

we haven't seen something for verbal

memory there was no association

and this was quite interesting because

the figural memory is

located on the right side of the brain

and more than 80 percent of our

participants use the mobile phone on the

right side of the brain

the verbal memory is more on the left

side of the brain

and so it's not surprising that we could

not see it

but we have done a lateral analysis and

have indeed seen there was a tendency

that right side user had an effect on

figural memory only

and left side user user on verbal memory

only

so this suggests that indeed

memory processes could be affected by

high dose of electromagnetic fields that

can occur

if a mobile phone has a low connection

quality

and transmit with maximum power

we also looked into health relate the

quality of life

and there it was quite clear and this is

a cross-sectional analysis

low use was related with

green squares so with positive

will help relate the quality of life you

can see different

different dimensions physical well-being

psychological well-being moods and

emissions

and so on and if you here see a red

so this means that they have lowest

score

here so that the social support on peers

so there might be actually a

disadvantage in adolescence if they are

not using the mobile phone a lot

they may have less support on the other

hand

those who have a high social use so it's

not the call preference they have the

highest exposure

from mobile phones highest radiation

exposure high social use does not

necessarily mean high

radiation exposure because when surfing

the mobile phone is far away from the

body

but those activities are related

to less well scoring

on different aspects of health relate

the quality

of life and basically the same pattern

has seen

in a study that we did in south africa

in the western cape region within the

bilateral chair of global and

environmental health

again we saw that medium use was

not really related to low symptoms

but high use had higher sleep

disturbance call

and most important those who reported

that they

are regularly broken up during night to

their

own mobile phone that those

had a much higher sleep disturbance

score

and also more problems with headache so

they had more often

headache when we looked into the

cognitive tests

we actually saw that there was a rather

an improvement in relation to mobile

phone use

mostly moderate e-media users less so

in heavy uses so this indicates

that maybe a bit of mobile phone use

is beneficial as you train yourself as

you get access to

your information so it can be useful for

the education of adolescents

so our conclusions are that our findings

imply that with regard to the education

of adolescents

a vigilant balance is needed to profit

from the beneficial effects

of moderate immediate use on cognition

while preventing the negative side

effects for health related quality of

life

sleep disturbance and headache severity

very very briefly as a last slide

if we have so much exposure to the head

that is the reason why there's also

concern that children may obtain a brain

tumor from mobile phone use

so far there's very little research on

that

there's only one multi-center case

control study

that we have done together with danish

swedish and norwegian researcher

and based on that we could not find

an increased brain tumor risk in our

sample

and this was consistent with incident

right trying

trend analysis you would expect that

nowadays most of adolescents use a

mobile phone

so if it were a strong risk then

basically the incidence of brain tumor

should have increased but this was not

the case

indicating that if there's a risk it

must be a small risk

maybe related to some type of tumors but

it cannot be

a big risk it's very interesting

that this type of time trend analysis

are usually very

weak epidemiological study design but

for these specific questions where we

have a strong increase in exposure

basically no strong other risk factor

except ionizing radiation for brain

tumors

and very good cancer registries in many

countries

this is actually considered to be a very

useful

tool to see and monitor by the childhood

childhood brain tumors are related

to increasing immediate use

so to summarize it's very tricky and we

cannot

finally solve e-media use may have

direct effect on emf on cognitive

function behavior and

symptoms but this may also be because of

content distraction and it

we also have to consider reverse

causality for instance

and here we have some evidence from our

study that

adolescence misbehavior problems tend to

use

e-media more often than those without

such problem and last but not least

latent variables or confounding is also

important

so we found also some indication that

moderate in media use is related to a

better

educational style of the parent more

supportive

so that might be the reason why moderate

eeg

media use has also some beneficial

effect on cognitive function

so to summarize most relevant

electromagnetic field sources

are devices that are operating close to

the body

so usually their own mobile phone

consistent cross-sectional association

has been observed for symptoms

and behavior but not cognitive functions

but they are not really pronounced in

longitudinal

analysis and in objective

recorded data from the mobile phone

operator so this suggests

that associations with symptoms and

behaviors

are more likely reverse

causality the pattern is complex

and probably e-media use

can amplifying existing problems so

if adolescents tend to be addictive

they may be addicted addicted to

immediate use and this may cause

problems in the long run for their

health relate the quality of life or for

their behavior

in particle problematic is nighttime use

and

this has really to be educated the

adolescents that this can be avoided

and these effects were much stronger

than what we have seen for one specific

outcome in our study on memory

which was a relatively small effect so

we can conclude that

non-radiation effects of e-medium

are most likely more relevant than

potential effects

from electromagnetic fields