Scientists in the UK are conducting the largest study to date on the effects of cell phone usage on adolescent and teenage brain development.
The study, called SCAMP (Study of Cognition, Adolescents and Mobile Phones), will follow a group of 2,500-3,000 students in the greater London area, charting changes in brain development from Grade 7 to Grade 9.
SCAMP’s mission, stated on its website, is “to investigate whether children’s use of mobile phones and/or other technologies that use radio waves e.g. portable landline phones and wireless internet, might affect their cognitive or behavioral development e.g. language comprehension, attention, memory.”
Students who take part in the study will take a “web-based cognitive assessment” in Grade 7 which they will then repeat in Grade 9. This assessment, consisting of “simple attention and memory tasks,” will hopefully allow researchers to study changes in adolescent brains over years of cell phone exposure.
As cell phone usage skyrockets in children from the ages of 11-12 to become nearly ubiquitous in the late teens, such a study could shed some much-needed light on the potentially harmful effects of radio-frequency (RF) waves, emitted by cell phones and other wireless devices, on developing brains. These effects have been discussed, but never proven, in previous and ongoing studies, as such studies have primarily focused on the possibly carcinogenic effects of cell phones on adults, and not adolescents. Because of this, the effects of RF radiation on younger brains have remained ambiguous.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “…it is still an open question whether children are more susceptible to radiofrequency and electromagnetic fields since the brain continues to develop during childhood and adolescence.” WHO also cautions that “children may be more vulnerable because of their developing nervous system, the greater absorption of energy in the tissues of the head, and a longer lifetime of exposure.”
This “open question” is precisely the question that SCAMP aims to answer. “Current UK health guidelines advise children under 16 to limit their mobile phone calls, but this policy has not been updated for over 10 years,” Dr. Mireille Toledano lead researcher at SCAMP, based at Imperial College’s Centre for Environment and Health, said. “This advice is based on the precautionary principle, given in the absence of available evidence. The SCAMP study will provide the evidence base with which to inform policy and through which parents and their children can make informed life choices.”
As cell phone usage among adolescents and even children becomes omnipresent, so do questions surrounding their long-term effects. The absence of scientific insight into the effects of cell phones on cognitive development has raised understandable concerns in parents, children, and scientists alike. By beginning to answer these questions, SCAMP could herald in a healthier generation of plugged-in children.
-Melanie Abeygunawardana
