Life's Great Mysteries - At any given moment, are cell phone calls going through my body?

Think about it. Millions of people are making calls all the time. The phone calls from these cell phones (in the form of radiofrequency waves) go to nearby cell towers, which then transmit the waves all over heck and gone. These phone calls and texts and photos and funny cat videos are going through walls and trees and clouds and, of course, people. At this very moment, someone’s conversation about their favorite movie might be passing through your body. Someone is asking someone else out for their first date, and the person’s life-changing answer is flying directly through your heart. Someone is texting a picture of the Cajun gumbo dinner they are eating, and the picture is passing right through your stomach and intestines. Come to think of it, what about all those television and radio signals? A rerun of the original Star Trek series may be passing through your noggin right now. Oh, the things we could learn if we could detect and understand all these signals passing through us!

Is this really happening? As it turns out, yes and no. As you probably know, a cell phone won’t work well in a deep basement or behind really thick walls. That means there are limits to what radiofrequency waves can pass through. The human body is mostly water, and water can block the waves. So, your body partially blocks (absorbs) some of the waves. A human body isn’t all that thick (though mine is thicker than it used to be), so some of the waves do pass all the way through.

This begs the question, with all these radiofrequency waves passing through us, is it dangerous? As it turns out, the answer is, not really. Because it depends on how much of it we are getting. The radiofrequency waves coming from a cell phone are very weak. The waves from a large cell tower are much stronger, but they are directed at the horizon, not at the ground below them. The waves become less of a problem with distance. Basically, you don’t have to worry about it, unless you decide to climb to the top of a cell tower, pitch a tent and camp right next to the transmitter for the next ten years. Also, consider this… radiofrequency waves are not ionizing radiation like X-rays or gamma rays. They do not break chemical bonds in your body. Many, many studies have been done to see if these waves have ill effects on the body, but no adverse effects have been linked to cell phone use.

On the other hand, there may be problems with addiction to funny cat videos.

Photo Credits:
- Illustration of signals passing through body - DepositPhotos