The Heritability and Genetic Correlates of Mobile Phone Use: A Twin Study of Consumer Behavior.
Miller G, Zhu G, Wright MJ, Hansell NK, Martin, NG · 2012
View Original AbstractYour genetics partially control how much you use your phone, directly influencing your cumulative EMF exposure risk.
Plain English Summary
Australian researchers studied 1,036 teenage twins to understand whether mobile phone use patterns are influenced by genetics. They found that how often teens make calls and send texts is significantly heritable (34-60% genetic influence), with family environment playing a smaller role. The study also revealed genetic links between heavier phone use and personality traits like extraversion, while showing negative correlations with intelligence.
Why This Matters
This twin study reveals something fascinating about mobile phone use that has direct implications for EMF exposure risk assessment. The reality is that your genetics partially determine how much you use your phone, which in turn determines your cumulative RF radiation exposure. The finding that heavier phone users tend to score lower on intelligence measures while being more extraverted suggests certain personality profiles may be at higher risk for EMF-related health effects simply because they use their devices more frequently. What this means for you is that EMF exposure isn't just about the technology itself, but about behavioral patterns that may be partly hardwired. This research challenges the assumption that phone use is purely a lifestyle choice and suggests we need to consider individual differences when assessing EMF health risks in populations.
Exposure Information
Specific exposure levels were not quantified in this study.
Study Details
There has been almost no overlap between behavior genetics and consumer behavior research, despite each field's importance in understanding society. In particular, both have neglected to study genetic influences on consumer adoption and usage of new technologies -- even technologies as important as the mobile phone, now used by 5.8 out of 7.0 billion people on earth. To start filling this gap, we analyzed self-reported mobile phone use, intelligence, and personality traits in two samples of Australian teenaged twins (mean ages 14.2 and 15.6 years), totaling 1,036 individuals.
ACE modeling using Mx software showed substantial heritabilities for how often teens make voice call...
Our results have implications for assessing the risks of mobile phone use such as radiofrequency field (RF) exposure and driving accidents, for studying adoption and use of other emerging technologies, for understanding the genetic architecture of the cognitive and personality traits that predict consumer behavior, and for challenging the common assumption that consumer behavior is shaped entirely by culture, media, and family environment.
Show BibTeX
@article{g_2012_the_heritability_and_genetic_2425,
author = {Miller G and Zhu G and Wright MJ and Hansell NK and Martin and NG},
title = {The Heritability and Genetic Correlates of Mobile Phone Use: A Twin Study of Consumer Behavior.},
year = {2012},
url = {https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22784459/},
}