A recent international conference focused on the use of cellphones to aid health care, made me think about my own health and my own phone.
Maybe you should too, if you're one of the five billion people around the world who uses a cellphone, and among half a billion of us in Africa, the fastest growing continent for mobile use.
The first African mobile health conference, held in Cape Town last week, happened to coincide with the release of a new World Health Organisation (WHO) study revealing a possible link between cellphones and cancer.
Potential mobile-inflicted afflictions are pretty scary: a malignant brain cancer called glioma, and a condition that harms your hearing and balance, acoustic neuroma.
The WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified mobile technology as "possibly carcinogenic", putting our phones into the same health risk category as coffee and pickled vegetables. (Fellow atchaar lovers, did you know that this spicy condiment could be carcinogenic? I wonder if my fave, pickled mango, less of a problem, being fruit rather than veg? I hope there's a study on this too.)
The mobile industry sponsors of the health summit stressed that the evidence on cellphone health risks is still inconclusive. The scientists who conducted the study confirmed this and plan further research.
If it were eventually to be concluded that using your mobile phone causes cancer, it would not be the first time that a widely marketed product has been proven to do so when used as directed; tobacco has long held that distinction. Unlike cigarettes, at least cellphones are not physically addictive - although they are said to be the most psychologically addictive of substances, after cigarettes and coffee.
Potential health problems are not just about the phone at your ear. The towers that transmit cellphone signals have caused controversy around feared health risks, especially given that public places, including schools, are allowing their grounds to be used for tower sites as a way of fund-raising. It's yet another case of NIMBY: Not In My Back Yard. As it is with nuclear power - a desire for electricity with a preference for the plants to be far away - we want optimum mobile reception wherever we are, but don't want the towers where we live and work.
Will these fears prompt us to cut back on the time we spend on our phones? With the medical juries still out, for the time being it's up to us consumers to inform ourselves, consider the options, and make our own decisions on whether or how to change our cellphone habits - and maybe most importantly, those of our children and teens, who the marketing surveys tell us regard their phones as the most important things in their lives.
While we wait to hear whether cellphones bring health risks, it may be worthwhile to re-consider mobile practices we may be engaging in which are not advised. Like speaking on your phone when the signal is poor - which the mobile industry recommends against.
This is due to concerns over the radiation that emanates from cellphones. There's more of it when it's harder is to connect, like when you're traveling in a car, underground or in a plane - or places that are far from any cellphone reception tower. Yet how often do we find ourselves tramping around, cellphones held aloft, desperately seeking a bit of reception, making our phones pump out ever more power in an effort to connect?
And where does this happen most? Like many of our services in Africa, delivery is often poorest where the poorest live - in rural areas, in low-income high-density areas, or anywhere else that is not deemed commercially viable enough to warrant erecting a reception tower close by.
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So here's a health tip you could implement immediately, which comes not from medical doctors but from the manufacturers' directions on safe use of their products. When you have barely a bar or two of reception, wait to make the call. Turn your phone off until you move to an area with good reception. And if this is the default situation in your area, consider launching a campaign for better reception.
To learn about precautions for limiting exposure to your phone's electromagnetic frequency you can check out the geek sites, e.g. Do-Fewer-Signal-Bars-Mean-More-Radiation-Danger or Cell phone radiation: A self-defense guide (FAQ).
Tips range from using the speaker phone or a headset instead of holding the phone to your ear, and not keeping your phone in your pocket.
Perhaps there should be another warning for African women, not to keep their phones in that popular storage and security spot: their bras.
