The Guinea Pig Generation

The generation born between 1985-95 has more or less seen the technology evolution from the fron seat. The advent of internet, landline giving up its place to mobile phones, more desk jobs than the labour intensive work. Through this journey, the lifestyle got altered to a large extent. Some of the changes are just an improvemnt to our life, while some or controversial in nature. I call them controversial as harmful effects are neither proved nor denied by scientific community.

The Experiments

Daily, we are unconsciously taking part of some of the largest scale experiments. These may not be conducted in labs but its been taking place in living area, workplaces or even during commutes. As the entire generation, people born after from late 1980s are the guines pigs - the generation of Guine Pigs, the test subjects. Some of the ongoing experiments can be listed as,

• Mobile phone exposure
• Eating processed food
• more sitting than moving around
• Increased consumption of data

Experiment 1: Increased exposure to mobile usage

The mobile phones became an integral part of our daily life. Residing along side the bed to meeting room, right through the restrooms. There could not be any other device that spread and conquered the lands like mobile phones. From a crawling toddlers to octogenarians, all of us are glued to mobiles. It enables us to connect people across the timezone in a press of a button. No time in past had so much easier way of communication or information transfer.

The mobile and mobile enabled services are booming all around. The OEM alone be valued at few billion dollars. The services the mobile phones enable could go beyond the valuation of OEMs. Some of the reason for aggressive expansion by mobile phones can be,

• Building block of Digital Economy. China’s daily transactions are carried out through the mobile phones, thanks to QR codes. Seeing the success story many countries are trying to replicate the model. India already setup the real-time P2P money transfer system via phone. India’s payment model is being recommened by Google to the US federal government.

• Last mile connectivity. The global average mobile internet speed is at 22 Mbps, says Forbes article dated 2018. The average speed would have went up since the study. Owing to the size, lower pricing than the conventional PC/laptop, the mobiles are go to devices for millions of people who are new to the Internet.

• Ease of usage. Fingerprints in place of passwords, touchscreen in place of buttons, the simplest of form factor, compact in size, affordable pricing, user-friendly UI. These are all helping the expansion of mobile phones across the geographies.

Mobile phones are simplest form of receiver & transceivers of radio waves. Being carried with us all the time, what would happen to our biology? The scientific community is yet to conclude on this.

In 2011, IARC classified mobile phone radiation possibly carcinogenic, means that there “could be some risk” of carcinogenicity, so additional research into the long-term, heavy use of mobile phones needs to be conducted.

Another study states otherwise.

In another study of a large nationwide cohort study of mobile phone us, there were no increased risks of tumours of the central nervous system, providing little evidence for a causal association.

As the argument goes on for and against the harmful effects of mobile phone exposure, the mobile phone expansion goes on break-neck speed. This long running experiment would conclude in next few decades, then no matter the result we will be facing the consequences.