When walking to class, students often must choose between personal interaction with friends and gabbing to roommates or parents on their cell phones.
What most students probably fail to realize is that by choosing to talk on the phone, they could be hurting not just the feelings of their friends, but also their own bodies.
Despite various studies that have shown the damage cell phones can cause, the U.S. National Cancer Institute insists that cell phones do not have any negative health effects. Because of this discrepancy, many students remain largely apathetic to the potential dangers of cell phone usage.
Fourth-year College student Drew Matz said while cell phones could potentially be harmful, it does not stop him from using his.
"Cell phones are like cigarettes," Matz said. "We all know they're bad for us, but alas, we won't do anything about it until the medical reports come out 10 years from now."
Yet many scientists would argue the medical reports supporting the dangers of cell phones have, in fact, already come out. One 2002 study conducted by Swedish oncologist Lennart Hardell found that usage of analog cell phones may be linked to brain tumors.
Patients who used these older, analog phones were around 30 times more likely than digital users to develop brain tumors, according to a USA Today article. This difference is thought to be caused by emissions from digital phones that release much less radiation than their analog counterparts.
Those in the study who used these older phones for more than 10 years were as much as 80 times more likely to develop tumors.
While analog phones may seem like a relic of the past, many phones today actually still use an analog network when digital is not available.
It is also believed that cell phone radiation may be linked to cases of Alzheimer's disease, which affects brain cells and the various functions they perform, including memory.
Damage of brain cells by cell phone radiation is thought by some to cause early onset of this disease due to radiation's effect on learning, memory and motor function, according to a BBC News World report.
The scientists in this particular study, led by Prof. Leif Salford at Lund University in Sweden, experimented on rats to determine the potential hazards of radiation exposure. They found that rats exposed to two hours of radiation accumulated a number of dead brain cells.
Hypothetically, radiation's effects on neurons already predisposed to Alzheimer's could potentially speed up the progression of the disease, Salford said.
Despite the fact that the study was conducted on laboratory rats, he added he believes that the results can be applied to humans because of their similar brain structures, blood-brain barrier and neurons.
University Physics Prof. Lou Bloomfield said he also remains unconvinced that cell phones cause no brain damage.
"While they don't cause direct chemical damage, they could have negative effects in the form of electrical or heating damage," Bloomfield said. "While cell phones are extremely unlikely to cause cancer, our tissue is conductive due to its salt water properties. Because of this, there may be currents flowing through us in the form of radio frequencies."
Bloomfield speculated that this exposure to radiation could have some effects on tissue.
In order to combat these potential radiation dangers, various companies have produced radiation blockers that can be attached to cell phones. One company, SAR Shield, even goes so far as to claim that their shield decreases radiation emissions by up to 89 percent.
Bloomfield said he is wary of these types of claims.
"Radiation shields are nonsense," he said. "A cell phone's whole job is to take voice and create a radio wave to represent it and then communicate with a cell tower by way of electromagnetic waves. Radiation is not a side effect but is the main job of the phone. If you try and reduce the radiation, then you are keeping the phone from doing its job. It's like putting a black sack over a flashlight."
But some students remain unmoved.
Fourth-year College student Anna Pleasant claimed that all the worry is probably for nothing.
"I hear about the dangers, but it is one of those things that I think is a myth to scare people off," Pleasant said. "I don't think it could be a danger unless you never take your phone away from your ear. I think the cell phone talking would have to be excessive."
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