Gadgetory

a while ago we did a video on whether smartphones could actually cause cancer from the radiation that they give off in the form of cellular and Wi-Fi signals you can check it out up here but the main takeaway is no you don't have anything to worry about but here we are in 2019 and some of the same concerns are getting raised yet again this time about 5g although 5g promises to deliver faster speeds to our phones and there are even home-based internet solutions that use 5g the fact that 5g travels over higher frequency radio waves has led to speculation that it might be riskier to use than older generation wireless standards so how much truth is there to this and why are people concerned in the first place well to start with 5g uses what's often called millimeter wave frequencies which are shorter than the typical frequencies used by 4G and Wi-Fi signals and therefore higher in energy in fact while LTE can use frequencies of around 2.5 gigahertz and Wi-Fi often works on the 5 gigahertz band millimeter wave frequencies used by 5g can be up to 300 gigahertz so we're not talking about like a small incremental leap here so then could all this extra energy end up being harmful in ways we haven't seen before well some of the folks and advocacy groups that believe it is point to actions taken by the International Agency for research on cancer or iar see specifically the fact that they've classified RF electromagnetic fields in short radio waves as possibly carcinogenic to humans as evidence that it is well that sounds pretty alarming doesn't it well it might until you consider that many things that most of us find innocuous like a cup of coffee actually fall under exactly the same category you see if you dig into what the IAR sees definition of possibly carcinogenic is they mean that there's only a limited amount of evidence that an agent might cause cancer so there might be some kind of weak correlation that's been observed in studies but that is a very far cry from there being any kind of real causal link that's been found so IR C's approach is to err on the safe side with anything that it classifies a bit like how everything that you buy has a label on it saying the state of California thinks this thing might cause cancer but this hasn't stopped people from hearing the words possibly carcinogenic and running with it in fact a couple places in Europe were hesitant to test new 5g infrastructure citing health concerns and there were even rumors that there were widespread bird deaths in the Netherlands due to 5g trials well turned out those birds were just eating poisonous plants I guess there's a reason that bird brain is an expression anyway the reason that we have nothing to fear from 5g is that radiation has to be much higher frequency to be what's called ionizing ionizing radiation can mess with the molecular structure of your DNA and cause cancer the thing is the threshold for this is around a million gigahertz much higher than the 300 or so that can be used by 5g and at that point you're not even dealing with radio waves anymore you're dealing with ultraviolet light which is why sunscreen bottles talk about UV protection on the label now with all of that said we're not claiming that 5g or any other piece of technology that we use can't cause cancer or other health problems by some mechanism that we haven't yet discovered or don't fully understand yet the thing is though my advice would be to go forward live your life without too much fear and pick up that hot new 5g phone if you're into it now if you'll excuse me I have to go pick up a large sack of cash that the mobile phone industry left for me out back bye oh wait no actually the cash comes from Squarespace create a beautiful website with Squarespace is all-in-one platform there are word winning templates make creating a powerful online identity even easier than ever before and every template is a starting for a wide range of projects Squarespace provides award-winning 24/7 customer support via live chat and email and you can also attend a live webinar or check out their help guides if you're having trouble you can also transfer your third-party domains to Squarespace so instead of working with multiple vendors to maintain your online presence you can manage all your domain and billing settings with Squarespace furthermore it's never been easier to solve products or services online Squarespace allows you to easily manage your products orders and inventory so head to Squarespace comm forward slash tech quickie we're gonna have that linked below and use code tech quickie to get 10% off your first purchase so thanks for watching like dislike check out our other videos leave a comment if you have a video suggestion and don't forget to subscribe and follow so you don't miss any future fast as possible videos that is unless your 5g phone killed you in which case YouTube is probably going to call your account at some point