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WE LIVE IN FEARFUL TIMES

Paul Broderick
Borrismore, Johnstown, Co. Kilkenny

The shining symbol of this new era is the mobile phone and unless you've been sleeping under a rock or are totally brain dead (perhaps because of these phones) you know this. Each week, mobile companies grow, expand and prosper as we line their thick and lengthy pockets with our honest hard earned cash. At the moment we live in fearful times, where the pursuit of personal safety has become a religion. Perhaps you have been too busy worrying about teacher’s strikes or this recent foot and mouth scare? Right under our nose, oblivious to us, lies the true killer, "Mobile Phones".

Mobile phones are an accouterment that just about everyone can use, unless you’re dyslexic and waste all your credit ringing total strangers. They are a great technical achievement based on millions of pounds worth of computers and a huge network of base stations which are invisible to the user. Have you ever wondered how our little portable friends actually do all these wonderful things for us? I'm not going to go through all the ins and outs, but microwave radiation is being created the minute we enter our pin codes, into these mini-doomsday devices. Maybe not in 5 or 10 years, but in about 15-20 years time, mobile phones will become the new health hazard. And, just as there are government health warnings issued on every packet of cigarettes, one will also be printed on every mobile phone. Instead of the health boards wasting endless amounts of money on campaigns to entice young school-going teens to 'kick the habit', they will be enticing them to 'take the mobile, if you want to end up im-mobile'.

In the big bad world of business, the mobile plays a vital role. Whether you’re a carpenter or a solicitor, it makes no difference. Yet, as these mobiles aid the progress of global development people's brains are literally being fried due to these microwaves. Keeping this information in mind, what have we to look forward to in the future, given that about one billion will have mobiles by 2003? But, then again, what's to say that hair-dryers are safe. Think about it? Every time you use it you expose your head to a prolonged blast of heat and an electromagnetic field. Have the manufacturers done the research needed to prove that there is no risk of brain cancer or memory loss? Did you think to check? A decade ago, mobiles were big and clumsy and all people worried about were the ballooning bills and the embarrassment of a warbling cell phone going off in a hushed cinema or theatre. Now, mobiles are suave fashion items and it's the fears about microwave radiation that are ballooning. More and more kids, teens and business people are being forced to give in and conform to these pressures of modernisation.

For everyone using a mobile whether it is needed or not, whether you’re a hip teen or a flamboyant business person, these are worrying times. Last month a British tabloid devoted its front page to a picture supposedly showing how mobiles heat the brain. Forget all this hype if you want, there is still no rock solid evidence that mobile phones will mangle your memories or give you cancer, yet!

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