Teenagers could be damaging their memory by using mobile phones, according to this study by Katharina Maß on Jul 31, 2018, 6:53 AM Advertisement
 - Regular use of cell phones can impair memory in young people, according to research conducted by the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute.
- Our figural memory, which is primarily located in the right hemisphere of our brains, is responsible for enabling us to recall shapes and figures.
- Those who hold their cell phones to their right ear found their memories were particularly affected.
There's long been speculation over whether high-frequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) have an effect on humans and if so, which ones.
Our ever-increasing reliance on mobile phones and other WLAN devices means our bodies are having to cope with radiation more often and more intensively in everyday life than ever before. However, research on how this mobile radiation affects our brain has been scant up until now. In a study entitled HERMES (Health Effects Related to Mobile Phone Use in Adolescents), researchers investigated the effects of RF-EMF exposure on memory performance in nearly 700 young people between the ages of 12 and 17. According to the study, the development of memory functions in the brain is particularly important up to the age of 15, especially when encoding, retrieving and processing data — and it was found that mobile phone radiation can have negative effects on figural memory performance. Figural memory is particularly affected Our figural memory, which is primarily located in the right hemisphere of our brains, is responsible, among other things, for enabling us to recall shapes and figures. The study's subjects provided information on their mobile phones habits, for example, how long they usually spent on their mobile phones every day and whether they were on their phones with or without headphones. To confirm the accuracy of the times they provided, researchers evaluated data from three Swiss mobile network operators. It turned out that in some cases, the young people actually overestimated the time they spent on their mobiles. In computer tests, the verbal memory of the study's participants was assessed: the subjects had one minute to memorise five sets of two to five words each, sorted into categories. For example, a category might be "city" and the words to memorise might include "Amsterdam", "Rome", "Hamburg", "Madrid" and "York". Each word was always assigned a letter, he students were shown a letter and asked to recall the corresponding word and its category. The researchers asked for a total of eleven letters. In the task of figural memory, the young people saw 13 pairs of abstract figures in one minute. Afterwards, they always had to assign the matching counterpart to one figure of the pair of five other figures. Teenagers who held their phone to their right ear were more affected In their investigations, researchers found no significant changes in verbal memory performance, indicating there was no evidence to show mobile radiation had any related impact, but the picture for figural memory looked very different: young people who regularly used their phones to make calls came off considerably worse in the tests. It was thus concluded that exposure to RF-EMF can negatively influence the development of figural memory. Young people who held their mobile phone to their right ear when making calls were affected moreso. Radiation is comparatively lower with text messages The study also found that if you play on your phone, surf the Internet, send SMS or WhatsApp messages, the radiation exposure to your brain is significantly lowered. The memory performance of those subjects who predominantly used their mobile phones for typing was affected less so. However, in order to completely rule out the possibility that figural memory is affected by some other factor, further studies will have to be carried out: head of the Environment and Health Unit at Swiss TPH Martin Röösli said: " The study outcomes may have been influenced by puberty, which affects both mobile phone use and the participants' behaviour and cognitive abilities." The study also found that the further the device was from the brain, the less radiation affected the brain and, in turn, memory performance. "Potential risks to the brain can also be minimised by using headsets or loudspeakers when making phone calls," said Röösli. SEE ALSO: These underwater robots that see in 270 colours could save the Great Barrier Reef
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