Why your cell phone can kill you

No, I'm not talking about the arthritis you're going to get from text messaging your friends 200 times a day.

Dozens of recent studies have alarmingly pointed to the devastating long-term effects of heavy cell phone usage... which includes just about everyone except my grandmother. The most recent study was conducted by Dr. Vini Khurana, and is the most alarming indictment published yet of the health risks associated with our beloved handsets. Read it here.

It draws on growing evidence - exclusively reported in the IoS in October - that using handsets for 10 years or more can double the risk of cancer. Cancers take at least a decade to develop, invalidating official safety assurances based on earlier studies which included few, if any, people who had used the phones for that long.

Naysayers are probably going to send me 100 emails with links to research that "proves" that cell phones area safe. Probably including the one conducted by the National Communication Association from the 1990s to show that cell phones are healthy and revolutionizing. Hm. I challenge someone to provide a document published after 2005 that disproves this claim.

Health risks and destruction theories aside, there are more implications to this growing crisis than meets the eyes. Mobile marketing is the next communication vehicle fad that businesses are utilizing to reach consumers. This is an industry projected to be worth more than $24 billion in the next five years. For those who are unfamiliar with this concept, the idea is to put advertising in your pocket via cell phones, text messaging, and digital promotion - essentially allowing consumers to be notified of sales promotions and receive branded messaging from companies anywhere in the world. Tantalizing opportunity for businesses, yes? Cell phone are obviously critical for this communication venture... I'll let you put two and two together.

Let's just hope our generation doesn't go down in history as the fools that held radioactive devices to our heads for 30 years before we finally realized that we were going to wipe ourselves off the face of the Earth.