What household electronics should I be concerned about?

June 16, 2013 9:20 AM

Dig around on the internet and you'll find plenty of people saying that cell phones are unsafe, microwaves are unsafe, wifi is unsafe, cordless phones are unsafe... how to make sense of what's legitimate and what's crockpot paranoia? Has anyone any advice to put me at ease (or ill at ease)?
posted by malhouse to Science & Nature (18 answers total)

At least 95% crackpot paranoia (and that's being super-generous). Look for double-blind studies like this one.
posted by supercres at 9:23 AM on June 16, 2013

I am going to assume that the complete lack of scientifically reviewed and reproducible studies showing measurable harm from consumer wireless/microwave devices is not enough to convince you.

Has anyone any advice to put me at ease (or ill at ease)?

You are constantly exposed to the largest electromagnetic radiation emitter in world - by several orders of magnitude - every day. It's called the Sun.

From a practical standpoint, if a wireless device was able to induce any measurable amount of heat in the operator of the device, it would be wasting battery power. Device manufacturers are interested in electromagnetic radiation going to the receiving antenna, not to the user's head. Further, they want to emit as little as possible of that radiation because any more than necessary (which is on the order of nanowatts) doesn't help the operation of the device and reduces battery life.
posted by saeculorum at 9:42 AM on June 16, 2013 [6 favorites]

You should not be concerned about any household electronics. The paint on your walls is more likely to be dangerous than any of your electronics, and you're far more likely to injure yourself on your stairs or chopping vegetables than with your wi-fi.
posted by tylerkaraszewski at 9:46 AM on June 16, 2013 [4 favorites]

Nothing is 100% safe.

Microwave radiation can cause cataracts but I think the microwaves would have to be from something super powerful like a radar facility and you'd probably have to have ignored warnings about not being to close to the array when its operating.

If I were looking for dangers in my house I'd have much more concern about possible intruders, any asbestos, water quality, radon, possible presence of raccoon feces(nasty nematode spores in them), West Nile carrying mosquitoes, bathroom slips and falls, and about 500,000 other things. We are all surrounded by countless risks. We can minimize some but life is never going to be guaranteed safe.
posted by logonym at 9:55 AM on June 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

Most household radiation sources are too weak to even theoretically hurt you at the distances you encounter them. An understanding of the inverse square law usually clears this sort of misunderstanding up. (For example, if your microwave oven could injure you from across the room, it would have struck you stone cold dead when you pressed the 'start' button standing next to it.)
posted by Orb2069 at 10:08 AM on June 16, 2013

Further, they want to emit as little as possible of that radiation because any more than necessary (which is on the order of nanowatts) doesn't help the operation of the device and reduces battery life.

Peak power for cellphone transmission is about 2 watts, not nanowatts. Most of this is going out the antenna to the cell tower, not into your head. The FCC limits the amount of power going into the head to 2 watts per kilogram. To get an idea of 2 watts, the typical incandescent night light or old style christmas tree bulb is about 7 watts.
posted by JackFlash at 10:10 AM on June 16, 2013

Peak power for cellphone transmission is about 2 watts

I'll admit the nanowatts number was an off-the-cuff estimate of power delivered into your head, but this number isn't any better. Peak power from a cell phone radio isn't very helpful, because that power is not continuously dissipated (the cell phone only transmits a [very] small fraction of the time) and that power is not delivered into an isotropic (ideal omnidirectional) antenna. The average power dissipation of the cell phone will be (much) lower than it's peak power. Further, I'd expect that the cell phone antenna will be designed such that it's gain is directed away from the head and that the head is in a "dead band" (residual side lobe) of the transmitter antenna pattern.
posted by saeculorum at 10:41 AM on June 16, 2013

Worry about any device that has a cord to plug in since you could trip over it.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 10:54 AM on June 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

Further, I'd expect that the cell phone antenna will be designed such that it's gain is directed away from the head and that the head is in a "dead band" (residual side lobe) of the transmitter antenna pattern.

You assume wrong. The FCC does SAR (Specific Absorption Rate) testing of cell phones using a model of the head while holding the phone to the ear. You can click through the pages here to see some of the results. Actual absorption by the head is typically about 1 watt.
posted by JackFlash at 10:56 AM on June 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

First off, this isn't something to worry about. Geeky hair-splitting follows:

You are constantly exposed to the largest electromagnetic radiation emitter in world - by several orders of magnitude - every day. It's called the Sun

This is true(-ish) but irrelevant. There are two mechanisms by which EM radiation can hurt you— ionizing and heating. Sunlight is dangerous because it's short-wavelength enough to be ionizing radiation; it gives you sunburn, skin cancer, etc. The 5GHz-and-down radiation from cell phones, microwaves, wifi, etc., is too long-wavelength to ionize, so the only known route for injury is heating. Wifi and the like is too low-power for this to be relevant. Microwave ovens, on the other hand, are clearly powerful enough to be deadly, but that's why they have safety interlocks so you can't operate them with the door open. (There is a few mW/cm2 of leakage, but that's a small amount of energy.) The runner-up would be cell phones, which don't emit much energy compared to a microwave or radar station, and haven't been demonstrated to be able to cause harm, but if something did turn out to be harmful, it'd probably be cell phones. There's been a lot of research on this subject that has failed to turn up any detectable effect, though, so I don't think it's worth worrying about at this point.

There has been some research and theorizing about possible other mechanisms for harm, and they're interesting to read about, but I wouldn't put much stock in them being real. If nothing else, if cell phones were particularly harmful, that would be detectable from epidemiology by now. Statistically, the harm from them must be less than the harm from driving to work, slipping in the shower, spending time sitting down instead of exercising, getting hit by lightning, worrying about your job, etc etc.
posted by hattifattener at 11:13 AM on June 16, 2013 [5 favorites]

The danger of cell phones etc. are texting while driving and walking. Also overuse that amounts to obsession.
posted by Cranberry at 11:16 AM on June 16, 2013 [3 favorites]

I think hattifattener is basically right -- it's at least theoretically possible that cell phones could maybe sorta be harmful, but if they were, we'd probably have noticed by now. Almost certainly if you don't have the thing by your head making calls for hours a day, you are fine.
posted by empath at 11:30 AM on June 16, 2013

A very large portion of the paranoid crackpot population is paranoid about devices that are receivers only. A satellite dish is just a piece of metal - it doesn't emit anything at all. Yet I've seen people freaking out over one. This should show you quite how irrational a lot of the ideas out there are.

In terms of actual risk to you, the things you should be worried about are food poisoning, not getting enough exercise, poor diet, and crossing the road.

If you really want to be extra careful about electronics and their effects on you, don't stand staring into the microwave when things cook, or store a cellphone next to an infant's head. And don't keep a laptop on your lap while trying to get your female partner pregnant (risk factor: heat, not radiation.)
posted by Ashlyth at 11:34 AM on June 16, 2013

The main household appliance you should be concerned about is whichever device you use to dig around on the internet to find these sorts of theories that are freaking you out. Limit your use of that device, and you'll start to feel more at ease. (This is not snark; I do the same thing for myself in terms of limiting my exposure to infuriating news stories, which tend to do nothing except make me feel anxious, helpless, and/or misanthropic.)

Before you turn off your computer, though, maybe take a look at What is Science, What is Not?, which might offer some approaches/resources in distinguishing psuedoscience from real science.
posted by scody at 12:04 PM on June 16, 2013 [2 favorites]

I wouldnt live in a house with a TV or phone transmitter near. I dont look through the doors of microwaves. I use mobile phones sparingly. I realise there is little research and most of the research indicates no harm. Yet the same could be said of asbestos in Armley and radioactive paint at Smiths. The evidence of harm, all too often, comes too late.
posted by BenPens at 2:40 PM on June 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

I had an old CRT TV catch fire once, that was pretty dangerous. Don't leave the TV on to keep the dog company while you're out and you should be right.
posted by goo at 4:47 PM on June 16, 2013

The risks in the home are far more mundane than those you fear. It's all about probabilities - something with a small risk of injury is still dangerous if it is something you do frequently. So although the risk of slipping in the shower and banging your head is small each time you have a shower, because it is something you do every day the cumulative risk is high.

There's a great article by Jared Diamond about exactly this.
posted by JohnnyForeign at 4:11 AM on June 17, 2013

Yeah, an old malfunctioning CRT television or monitor is probably the most potentially dangerous thing one would have in their house. But even then, not all that dangerous.

The weirdest thing that has personally happened to me was a CFL light on a timer that malfunctioned. Every evening when it would turn on, my cellular reception would go to shit. Because, I assume, it was emitting noise on the same wavelength as Sprint PCS in 2002-ish.
posted by gjc at 5:45 AM on June 17, 2013