5G is already being tested in many places around the world , and most top-of-the-line phones can now use it. It promises speeds of up to 2 G...
5G is already being tested in many places around the world, and most top-of-the-line phones can now use it. It promises speeds of up to 2 Gbps. Two gigabytes per second. With that speed, you could download an entire season of TV shows in just a few seconds. But new technology raises the question of whether or not it is safe. What does 5G do to your health?
And with it, conspiracy theories like "5G causes cancer" and "5G can be used to control us." The coronavirus is being spread with the help of 5G. All of that will be on the table.
What does 5G mean?
First, what exactly is 5G? 5G stands for the fifth generation of technology for sending data over the air. It's kind of like the step after 4G. It lets users and devices connect to the internet at incredibly fast speeds with very low latency.
The good things about 5G are that you can download files faster. You can watch videos in Full HD, and buffering will be as old as floppy discs. We could use this reliable and fast network to run fleets of cars that don't need people to drive them. Cars that don't need drivers can talk to each other and avoid crashes. Over the internet, surgeons can do surgery. With robots, the surgeon can be in the UK and do surgery on a patient in Africa. The Internet of Things can be used to connect everything we use, from our toasters to our shower heads to our running shoes. And because of the low latency, everything would work together very well.
5G will be the next step for the internet. We might not even need optical fibres, modems, or Wi-Fi routers anymore, and all of these things will become obsolete.
Effects of 5G on Health: So, this is a great piece of technology, right? At least, it sounds like one, but why are people worried about the risks instead of being excited about what could happen? It is part of what makes us human and how we evolved to be worried about new and unknown things. What does 5g do to your health? When something new or unknown comes into a person's life, the first thing they do is react with fear, anxiety, and caution.
It's important to have this trait. For example, a million years ago, if we didn't have this trait, we probably would have all died or been eaten. So being careful and worried is a good trait here, especially when a word like "radiation" is used. But it's also bad to be too careful.
If we were too afraid of fire, we would never have learned how to control it and use it for good. We would have never been to space if we were afraid of flying. So, the best way to deal with new technology is to know what it is and how it works. 5G is a type of electromagnetic radiation, like light, but its frequency is much lower.
The frequencies of light that we can see range from 400 to 790 terahertz. 4G, on the other hand, uses frequencies from 600 megahertz to 6 gigahertz. Now, 5G has frequencies that range from 28 gigahertz to 300 gigahertz, which is still much lower than that of light. About 1,000 times lesser.
Can 5G cause cancer?
Now, in order for radiation to cause cancer, it has to break bonds in the DNA of our cells, which takes a lot of energy. It needs to have enough energy to knock electrons out of the item's outermost orbits. This makes the item ionised and breaks the structure of the molecules in the DNA.
Now, this change in our DNA happens quite often in our bodies, but it doesn't lead to cancer because there are a lot of ways to keep cancer from happening in our bodies. Only in very, very, very rare mistakes, maybe one in a billion, does a cancer cell form, but even then, our body has a lot of ways to fight off this cancer cell and keep it from turning into full-blown cancer.
If our bodies didn't have systems like these, we'd all get skin cancer just from being in the sun. Ionizing radiations are those that can break bonds because they can cause ionisation. And these have very high frequencies, with gamma rays being the highest and UV rays being the lowest.
Skin cancers can be caused by UV light from the sun. Repeated exposure to x-rays can cause different types of cancer, which is why x-ray technicians wear these lead coats. And the gamma rays that are released by nuclear explosions like Hiroshima and Nagasaki and nuclear accidents like Chernobyl can cause many different types of cancer and can even kill people right away.
Non-ionizing radiation includes all light frequencies below the top UV light spectrum, as well as infrared rays, microwaves, 4G, 5G, and radio frequencies. They are called non-ionizing radiations because they don't have enough power to knock an electron out of its outermost orbit. So they can't make molecules in your body ionise and they can't break DNA bonds, so they can't cause cancer. So 5G can't really cause cancer.
Is 5G safe in every way?
But does that mean that 5G is completely safe, and how does it affect your health? It may not be. There is a syndrome called electromagnetic hypersensitivity that is thought to be caused by exposure to electromagnetic waves, but it hasn't been proven yet. Which can lead to headaches, changes in mood, and even depression.
Even though there isn't any scientific proof of this yet, and it may just be psychological, we may find out in five to ten years that it's true, especially with 5G, which has a higher frequency and shorter wavelength, so it can't travel far. It can't go through things like trees, walls, or buildings, and rain can even mess with it.
So, we can't have a big central transmitter like 3G and 4G. We need a bunch of small transmitters all over the city, maybe one every block or two. So, technically, this means that 5G will expose us to more radiation than 4G or 3G did. That's too bad, but should we be worried about it? Actually, no.
How bad are electromagnetic waves?
ICNIRP. That's a lot to say. It is an organisation that is not controlled by any government or big business. It keeps an eye on how electromagnetic waves affect health, and it has said that 5G waves up to 300 gigahertz, which is their highest frequency, are safe. There are also very strict rules about how much power these waves can carry.
So far, all the studies that have been done say that 5G is safe, and more studies will be done as 5G becomes more common. And if it hurts health in any way, it will be thrown out.
So, you don't need to worry about how 5G will affect your health, and no, it can't give you the coronavirus virus. 5G is like a wave, and the virus is a virus. And your brains can't be controlled by 5G. That's not how our brains work.
