There have long been worries about the health risks of mobile phones – particularly to the young, whose brains are not yet fully formed, whose skulls are thinner, and who face a lifetime of exposure. Official health expert advice is to limit use among children as a precaution – although no real evidence has yet been found to link mobile phone usage to health dangers such as cancer.
Now the latest concerns for parents and teachers alike centre on the wifi networks that link children’s computers in the classroom. Some schools have shut down their networks amid claims that they are causing problems ranging from skin rashes to headaches.
Wi-fi networks feature in eight out of ten primary schools and half of primary schools in the UK. Last month, the Professional Association of Teachers wrote to Alan Johnson, the education secretary, asking that a scientific enquiry be conducted into the potential health risk posed by wifi networks, and recommended that more schools stop installing them until the precise nature of the threat is understood.
To add fuel to teachers’ and parents’ concerns, the respected BBC documentary programme Panorama screened an alarming episode last month, claiming that the radiation given off by a wi-fi laptop is “three times higher than the …signal strength of a typical phone mast.”
However, these arguments were widely refuted by physicists who rejected the programme’s studies as “grossly scientific” and a “scare story”. Most scientists agree that there are no grounds for thinking that wi-fi radiation at the level generated by a wireless router would have any harmful effects. In fact, the World Health Organisation says, “there are no adverse health effects from low-level, long-term exposure.”
So what is the true situation? Do the educational and practical benefits offered by this networking tool outweigh the health risks, or are we sitting on a health time bomb, that could effect our children’s’ behaviour, fertility or even worse? Wi-fi has been widely adopted by schools because it negates the need for cumbersome cabling in classrooms. This can be of particular benefit in older buildings that are obviously not set up with ICT requirements in mind.
Information can be passed and accessed easily and instantaneously, and whole classrooms can surf the internet simultaneously. Better yet, the networks can be installed in a matter of moments and are cheap to set up and relatively cheap to run. Until now, the biggest concerns facing wi-fi users has been the levels of security offered by the technology, and whether strangers can tap in and access the information en route.
It can be argued that these health scares concerning technology are constantly hitting the headlines before fading once more into obscurity. Take the story concerning the introduction of computer display screens thirty years ago, which were later found to be completely unfounded. Many argue that the symptoms claimed to be associated with wi-fi networks, such as skin rashes and headaches could be caused by a whole host of other factors.
“I used to get intense headaches at work all the time. I attributed it to mobile phones at first, and had I heard of this scare, I would have also suggested wi-fi. It turned out it was due to drinking any diet drink containing sweetener,” wrote Sam Hatoum in an email to the BBC website.
Dr. Michael Clark, science spokesman for the Health Protection Agency, believes we need to put the wi-fi threat into perspective. “In classrooms, a typical exposure is 20 millionths of the guideline levels, whereas a mobile phone is 50 per cent of guidelines,” he says.
“Twenty minutes on a mobile phone call is equivalent to a year in that classroom. It’s a completely different level of exposure. These are nonionising radio waves. They’re not X-rays, or gamma rays, or ultra violet. It’s completely different in energy terms. I’m looking outside now and that’s electromagnetic radiation – visible light. Radio energies are a million times less energetic than ultraviolet light,” he adds.
Reassuring words indeed, but the teaching profession want to be absolutely sure that the use of wi-fi in schools really is as safe as the scientists say. “Schools can’t afford to delay, while the scientists make up their minds,” John Dunford of the Association of School and College Leaders told Panorama. And indeed, a number of leading schools, including the renowned independent Stowe, have taken to switching off some of their wi-fi networks until more research into the phenomenon is carried out.
One of the problems in conducting effective research will be the widespread nature of wi-fi networks and mobile phone masts in modern life. Hardly a high street in the country exists, that does not feature a wi-fi hotspot in a café. Most offices are networked in this way and now wi-fi is also popular in many homes. This has led to something of an electromagnetic “smog” particularly in urban areas that is very hard to avoid. Dr Andrew Goldsworthy, a retired biologist said in an interview with the BBC that even if wi-fi falls within current safety guidelines, this should not be taken as meaning that it is harmless. He claims that the guidelines are based on the heating effects of radiation but there are other risks outside of this form of radiation that could also be severely damaging to a child or teacher’s health. “The longer the exposure the greater the risks,” he said.
Wherever one stands on the issue, it is clear that more research should be carried out, if only to put minds at rest. The Health Protection Agency realises this, while still trying to offer reassurance to those concerned. “The evidence so far does not suggest that wi-fi networks represent a health risk as the signals are “very low power” typically 0.1 watt.”
But the HPA has stated that it wants to measure exposure levels in a range of actual classroom settings with different scenarios including varying numbers of computers linked together with wi-fi and differing numbers of pupils present. The HPA has also stated that there will be other factors to take into consideration, such as where the laptops themselves are placed. Are there greater risks for example by putting them directly onto children’s laps?
The lesson to be learned from this situation is perhaps that the education sector should not become too reliant on these new forms of technology, before the true nature of the risks are fully clear. The government needs to reassure both the teaching profession and the rest of society that children are indeed safe to attend their schools and the matter can then hopefully be put to rest. It is impossible to turn back time to chalk boards in order to minimise any potential risk to students as they are constantly bombarded by the same sorts of radiation by simply walking down the street. But then again, that in itself is not a good enough reason to remain wilfully ignorant of any risks that may be present within the classroom.
