Wi-Fi Health Risk to Children

Professor Lawrie Challis who is currently heading a committee on mobile phone safety research, Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research Programme, an £8.4 million investigation funded by the UK Government. He said that young students should be monitored amid mounting public concern over emissions from Wi-Fi Networks. He said only limited studies have been done how harmful these emissions will be on humans and most importantly on children who will be more vulnerable to these emissions.

Prof Challis warned that until a study is done to rule out any harmful effects of Wi-Fi radiation, children should use laptops only if the embedded antenna is at a safe distance from them.

In the desktop computer, the transmitter is set at a safe distance from the user; the exposure will be similar to one percent of the radiation one receives from mobile phones. In the Laptop on the other hand the transmitter is very close to the user and the radiation received is similar to the exposure of a mobile phone.

Children are very sensitive and don’t have enough strength in their body to cope up with these dangers, so they should be protected. Children are advised to stop using the mobile phones for the same reason; otherwise they will be exposed to more harmful radiation.

In UK, they are currently working on it to control this exposure in their Wi-Fi networks established in schools.

In Britain, one in five adults own a wireless enabled laptop and half of all primary schools and 80 percent of secondary schools have wireless networks.

Wi-Fi works through the transmission of radio waves between a router, which is connected to a telephone line, and a small transmitter in a computer. Under international guidelines the amount of energy absorbed into the body from such radio waves cannot exceed two watts per kilogram when averaged over any 10 grams of tissue.

There is maximum signal strength right next to the router or transmitter around 0.1 watts and this strength drops off rapidly with incremental distances from the transmission point.

Alasdair Philips, the director of Powerwatch, the consumer group said that our brains and nervous systems work by using electrical signals. He believes these signals may be interfered with frequent exposure to this Wi-Fi Radiation. He said:

Based on studies reporting effects experienced by people living near mobile phone masts, I would predict chronic fatigue, memory and concentration problems, irritability and behaviour problems - exactly what we are seeing increasingly in our school pupils.

I think one has to be careful in use of both mobile and laptops, unless studies prove that it doesn’t cause any damage. Till then children should be advised to use less mobile phones instead of frequent calls they can send text messages and instead of laptops they can be asked to use desktops mostly.