Analysis of the influence of handset phone position on RF exposure of brain tissue.
Ghanmi A, Varsier N, Hadjem A, Conil E, Picon O, Wiart J. · 2014
View Original AbstractHow you position your phone during calls can increase brain radiation exposure by 20% above safety test levels.
Plain English Summary
French researchers tested 80 different positions of mobile phones against the head to measure how much radiofrequency energy (called SAR) reaches brain tissue at standard cell phone frequencies. They found that simply changing how you hold your phone can increase brain exposure by up to 20% compared to the standard cheek position used in safety testing. This means current safety tests may underestimate real-world exposure for some common phone positions.
Why This Matters
This research exposes a critical flaw in how we test mobile phone safety. The standard testing position (phone pressed against the cheek) doesn't represent how people actually use their devices in daily life. When you tilt your phone slightly, hold it at different angles, or position it differently during calls, you can significantly increase the amount of radiofrequency energy absorbed by your brain tissue. What makes this particularly concerning is that current safety standards are based on that single 'cheek position' scenario. The reality is that 5-10% of common phone positions result in 20% higher brain exposure than what regulators use to set safety limits. This suggests that millions of users may be experiencing higher exposures than what safety testing accounts for, simply based on natural variations in how they hold their phones.
Exposure Information
Specific exposure levels were not quantified in this study. The study examined exposure from: 900 and 1800 MHz
Study Details
In this article, we analyze the influence of the phone position on the brain exposure by comparing the specific absorption rate (SAR) induced in the head by two different mobile phone models operating in Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) frequency bands.
To achieve this objective, 80 different phone positions were chosen using an experiment based on the...
The results illustrate that SAR distributions inside the brain area are sensitive to the position of...
Show BibTeX
@article{a_2014_analysis_of_the_influence_2110,
author = {Ghanmi A and Varsier N and Hadjem A and Conil E and Picon O and Wiart J.},
title = {Analysis of the influence of handset phone position on RF exposure of brain tissue.},
year = {2014},
doi = {10.1002/bem.21856},
url = {https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bem.21856},
}