theMediaman.com

Excuse me for a moment while I toot my own horn.

Two years ahead of the curve. That’s what I’ve always claimed for myself. Even before techology entered the picture, I was wearing Hawaiian shirts two years before they started showing up in stores as a fashion trend - partly because of the retro-70s crud.

I got on the Internet in 1995… two years before the masses started getting themselves Pentium II’s and a modem. I had Internet Addiction in 1996, two years before they released studies on Internet Addiction. I was working in Flash in 1998, two years before it became mainstream.

Just under two years ago, I found my Telus phone to be more of an irritant than a convenience, so I tossed it. I fully expected my usual trend-anticipation to continue, but it didn’t look to happen. There are still cell phones everywhere, and it looks like they’re soon to spread to airplane commuters.

Cell phone sales have indeed dropped, but that might have something to do with the over saturation in the market, or even the lack of truly desirable features. However, something more interesting has just come to light. A four-year study using cell phone technology in a post-analog world. Everyone always took that “cell phones cause cancer” warning with a grain of salt. I don’t think anyone ever really put any weight in that claim, especially when cell phones are much smaller physically today than the bricks of yesteryear.

The study shows that cell phone use causes mutations in human and animal DNA. Now, of course there’s the usual ‘blah, blah, blah, unsubtantiated, blah’ from the cell phone companies. But doesn’t this just make sense?

I can already hear people arguing (mostly in Reg’s voice) that EVERYTHING causes cancer. True. But only cigarettes and cell phones are near your head for lengths of time, day after day, week after week. So saying that cell phones don’t cause cancer any more than - say - sniffing gasoline fumes does, isn’t a fair comparison. You don’t sniff gasoline fumes when you’re in your car (unless you’re driving a Paul-car)… This arguement is full of holes. I’m going to drop it now.

I’m not sure that people are putting their cell phones down yet - or that society may ever give up their precious electronic connection to everything - but I’m sure to be one of the only people around with two perfect, cancer-free ears at the time of my death…

which will probably be heroic…

saving orphans…

and Maxim models…