[ RadSafe ] Cell phones (off topic...)

[Doug Aitken]

At 11:13 AM 8/8/2007, Brennan, Mike  (DOH) wrote:
>There are two serious health effects connected with mobile phones:  The
>negative effect of people talking on them when they should be
>concentrating on something else, which kills tens of people per day in
>the US, and the positive effect of summoning emergency services almost
>instantly from almost anywhere, which saves tens of people per day in
>the US (both effects with orders of magnitude larger numbers of people
>injured or the severity of their injuries lessened, respectively).  All
>other proposed health effects vanish into the background when compared
>to these two.

I totally agree with this. But on a sociological level, do none of you feel 
that the use of these phones has totally changed people's behavior? It used 
to be that the use of a phone was a somewhat private act (obviously except 
in crowded offices - I am talking about in public places). Now we are 
subjected to loudmouthed people happily carrying on their "private" 
conversations, oblivious to others around them. While we may gain a little 
prurient thrill in eavesdropping, I personally feel that this is a bit of 
an invasion of MY space..... and extremely rude behavior on the part of the 
person on the phone.

The second insidious effect of the cell phone is that we are constantly 
"supposed" to be available at ant time........

Of course, the most ridiculous aspect of cell phones behavior (now pretty 
much disappeared, as the cost of these devices drops dramatically) was the 
large quantity of people (mostly young men) in Latin American cities that 
would walk around in public with fake phones on their ears, just to look 
cool.......
;~)
Doug

Doug Aitken                     Cell Phone    713 562-8585
QHSE Advisor
D&M Operations Support
Schlumberger Technology Corporation