Where’s Your Phone? A Survey of Where Women Aged 15-40 Carry Their Smartphone and Related Risk Perception: A Survey and Pilot Study

PLOS ONE, Dec 2019

Smartphones are now owned by most young adults in many countries. Installed applications regularly update while the phone is in standby. If it is kept near the body, this can lead to considerably higher exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation than occurred without internet access. Very little is known about current smartphone carrying habits of young women. This survey used an online questionnaire to ask about smartphone location under several circumstances to inform the power calculation for a women’s health study. They were also asked about risk perceptions. Data was analysed using Pearson chi square. Three age categories were made: 15–20, 21–30, 31–40. Smartphones were generally kept on standby (96% by day, 83% at night). Of all participants, in the last week the most common locations of the phone when not in use or during passive use was off-body (86%), in the hand (58%), a skirt/trouser pocket (57%), or against the breast (15%). Pocket and near-the-breast storage were significant by age (χ215.04, p = 0.001 and χ210.96, p = 0.04, respectively), both positively influenced by the youngest group. The same influence lay in the association between holding the phone (χ211.082, p = 0.004) and pocket-storage (χ219.971, p<0.001) during passive use. For calls, 36.5% solely used the phone against the head. More than half kept the phone 20–50 cms from their head at night (53%), while 13% kept it closer than 20 cms. Many (36%) thought RF-EMR exposure was related to health problems while 16% did not. There was no relationship between thinking RF-EMR exposure causes health problems in general and carrying the phone against the upper or lower body (p = 0.69 and p = 0.212, respectively). However, calls with the phone against the head were positively related to perception of health risk (χ2 6.695, p = 0.035). Our findings can be used in the power calculation for a case-control study.

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Where’s Your Phone? A Survey of Where Women Aged 15-40 Carry Their Smartphone and Related Risk Perception: A Survey and Pilot Study

January Where's Your Phone? A Survey of Where Women Aged 15-40 Carry Their Smartphone and Related Risk Perception: A Survey and Pilot Study Mary Redmayne 0 1 2 0 School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University , Melbourne, Victoria , Australia 1 Funding: The study was funded by the National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC) of Australia , NHMRC grant 2013 CRE 1060205, https:// 2 Editor: Sliman J. Bensmaia, University of Chicago , UNITED STATES Smartphones are now owned by most young adults in many countries. Installed applications regularly update while the phone is in standby. If it is kept near the body, this can lead to considerably higher exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation than occurred without internet access. Very little is known about current smartphone carrying habits of young women. This survey used an online questionnaire to ask about smartphone location under several circumstances to inform the power calculation for a women's health study. They were also asked about risk perceptions. Data was analysed using Pearson chi square. Three age categories were made: 15±20, 21±30, 31±40. Smartphones were generally kept on standby (96% by day, 83% at night). Of all participants, in the last week the most common locations of the phone when not in use or during passive use was off-body (86%), in the hand (58%), a skirt/trouser pocket (57%), or against the breast (15%). Pocket and near-thebreast storage were significant by age (χ215.04, p = 0.001 and χ210.96, p = 0.04, respectively), both positively influenced by the youngest group. The same influence lay in the association between holding the phone (χ211.082, p = 0.004) and pocket-storage (χ219.971, p<0.001) during passive use. For calls, 36.5% solely used the phone against the head. More than half kept the phone 20±50 cms from their head at night (53%), while 13% kept it closer than 20 cms. Many (36%) thought RF-EMR exposure was related to health problems while 16% did not. There was no relationship between thinking RF-EMR exposure causes health problems in general and carrying the phone against the upper or lower body (p = 0.69 and p = 0.212, respectively). However, calls with the phone against the head were positively related to perception of health risk (χ2 6.695, p = 0.035). Our findings can be used in the power calculation for a case-control study. Introduction Smartphones are now owned by more than three quarters of US residents aged 12 to 34 [ 1 ], and 25% of US 18 to 33 year-olds who own a mobile cannot recall the last time it was not within arm's reach [ 2 ]. In Australia, ownership among those aged between 18 and 75 is 89% Population Health Research on Electromagnetic Energy (PRESEE). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. [ 3 ] and in the United Kingdom 88.5% of 16±34 year olds owned one by 2015 [ 4 ]. In all cases, the highest proportion of owners are those under the age of 44 [ 5 ]. Use of these devices for purposes other than phone calls is high. A recent Pew study found that text messaging, voice and video calls, internet use, and email functions are used frequently by most smartphone owners [ 6 ]. Other popular uses for under-30s include social networking and listening to music/podcasts [ 6 ]. Activities such as the last of these can be undertaken without holding the phone, referred to as passive use in this paper. For instance, it may be tucked into the clothing and used with ear-buds. These new uses and user-options and the high level of dependence on staying in touch carry implications for levels of radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation (RF-EMR) exposure. This can be considerably higher than used to occur in standby mode. First, smartphones have several antennae capable of concurrent operation. The phones are naturally required to comply with exposure Standards. However, the antennae are tested individually and the reliability and appropriateness of the newly developed formula used to account for total output for compliance has been questioned [ 7 ]. Second, increased exposure occurs when the phone is in standby due to background activity related to installed applications (apps). Apps use one of three techniques, pull, push, and longpolling, that run automatically in the background for regularly updating information [ 8 ]. This is in addition to the regular signal maintaining contact with the nearest base station that applied to earlier mobile phones also. The type of polling used depends upon the app. For instance, Twitter uses pull technology, transmitting to the server for updates, while iPhone's Apple's Push Notification Service (APNS) sends messages asking for updates, remaining active while awaiting a reply; Facebook uses long-polling on iPhone but pull technology on android phones [ 8 ]. If there is no response, then the app has ªheartbeatsº±small signal packages to chec (...truncated)


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Mary Redmayne. Where’s Your Phone? A Survey of Where Women Aged 15-40 Carry Their Smartphone and Related Risk Perception: A Survey and Pilot Study, PLOS ONE, 2017, Volume 12, Issue 1, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0167996