We all have them, the whole world at the fingertips and sitting in your pockets. Without this fine technological advancement, I am sure we would be lost and wondering what we are going to do with the extra time. Smartphones have made life less complicated and arguably made some elements of our lives that little more secure. Banking has become more accessible, coping with long lasting illness has become easier and perhaps they could even be the answer to loneliness but do the negatives outweigh the positives? Smartphones in particular have been linked with increasing mental health issues and depression rates and its even been connected with various cancers. The surprising thing is that these findings were discovered during the nineties and have been suppressed until fairly recently. Cellular phones give off non-ionising radiation which is not thought strong enough to break down chemical bonds like other ionising radiations such as nuclear power, x-rays, CT and MRI scans, which most certainly do cause cancer in high doses (Risk Factors: Radiation, 2021). Although I do not believe in animal testing in any form, the impact this has had upon rats for instance is all too conclusive. After being exposed for lengthy periods of time to non-ionising radiation found in cellular phones, the subjects were found to have developed tumours, most notably found around the heart (Schlanger, 2021). But what does that mean for human beings? Perhaps, with the amount of time that we spend endlessly scrolling through social media feeds and reading and watching content, it creates a rather concerning risk. Although this is extreme, there are other ways that your smartphone is harming you and you don’t even know it. Not only does the endless scrolling through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have a psychological effect upon us, it is making us blind. Smartphones emit short wavelength blue light, which encourages us to strain the eyes and has been known to cause lasting damage to the corneas, thus affecting our ability to actually see the world around us ironically. Moreover, the unhealthy relationship that we have with our pocket sized companions and the sheer speed in which we can connect to stimulus enables us to compare our lives to others much more readily, impacting upon confidence and depression and mood in some cases. When we see these readily available images of others we see the tip of the iceberg or the gliding swan, not actually seeing what is going on beneath the surface. We instead are encouraged to make snapshot inferences, draw comparisons and feel inferior. Now arguably, not everyone feels this way, but it is more common than you might think (Tips for a Healthy and Safe Home, 2021). We could potentially argue that this is an inadvertent consequence of technological advancement but regardless of this, it is evident that the majority of mental health issues, especially the likes of depression and anxiety are implicitly linked to smart phone use, as more of us are getting less sleep. Younger people between the ages of nineteen and twenty-nine, confess to spending an hour before sleep scrolling whilst lying in bed. From a biological perspective the short wavelength blue light aforementioned, halts our production of melatonin, the hormone needed to relax us before sleep. With less and less hours used to repair the body, it is affecting us both physically and mentally without us knowing it. Additionally, it has the ability to make us lonely although we have the world at our fingertips, as we miss out on key experiences and physical interactions. The constant distraction has the potential to make us more reclusive and withdrawn and perhaps even distrusting of others. But, we continue as we are, we overlook the medical advice and we buy into it again and again. Smartphones are dangerous, but is it worth the risk? National Cancer Institute. 2021. Risk Factors: Radiation. [online] Available at: <https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/radiation#:~:text=Radiation%20of%20certain%20wavelengths%2C%20called,forms%20of%20high%2Denergy%20radiation.> [Accessed 22 January 2021]. Schlanger, Z., 2021. We Now Have The First Clear Evidence Cell Phone Radiation Can Cause Cancer In Rats. [online] Quartz. Available at: <https://qz.com/1241867/cell-phone-radiation-can-cause-cancer-in-rats-according-to-the-final-results-of-a-us-government-study/> [Accessed 22 January 2021]. OnHealth. 2021. Tips For A Healthy And Safe Home. [online] Available at: <https://www.onhealth.com/content/1/healthy_safe_home> [Accessed 22 January 2021].

MOST powerful, modular inventions are dangerous. And what, today, is more powerful or modular than a smartphone?

**Smartphones and the accompanying applications can have dangerous implications** - Increased and unprecedented accessibility - The internet has enabled communication and access to resources like never before. Since the development of smartphones which are able to connect to the internet, it has created a need to be constantly connected. Whether this is to our friends, people we've connected with online through social media or to work/education, it has essentially facilitated the ways in which we are accessible to each other, which can be dangerous. It can manifest itself in addictive tendencies, or even abusive tendencies - for instance cyber harassment and trolling. Impact on mental and physical health: - Smartphone use has been connected to depression and loneliness in young people according to a study from the University of Arizona (https://news.arizona.edu/story/which-comes-first-smartphone-dependency-or-depression) - Driving - drivers using their smartphones and other electronic devices are four times as likely to crash, injure or kill themselves/other people (https://www.rospa.com/media/documents/road-safety/mobile-phones-and-driving-factsheet.pdf)

**Although research still needs to be done to conclusively find out how dangerous smartphones are to our health, their necessity in modern life makes even a slight risk of danger very notable.** - Research generally comes to the consensus that [smartphones do not increase health risks for diseases like cancer] (https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/cancer-myths/do-mobile-phones-cause-cancer), but such studies also say that further research is needed. - Smartphone usage and importance to modern life is something that has escalated very quickly since their invention in the 1990s. This has made studies into their effects on the development of severe health risks like cancer difficult to measure because conditions can take years to develop in users, and smartphones have not been around long enough for studies to be conclusive. - Aside from directly health-related dangers, smartphones are also dangerous in other ways. Blue light emitted by these devices causes eye problems when used for long time periods, and according to a study by the National Cancer Institute, ["the most consistent health risk associated with cell phone use is distracted driving and vehicle accidents."] (https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/radiation/cell-phones-fact-sheet) - Perhaps the real danger in our use of smartphones is how central they have become to modern existence. Advancements in technology mean that almost all aspects of our life can revolve around our phones; in social, academic, and career-related ways. It's definitely unsettling to think about how central smartphones are to modern-day life considering that there is still much we don't know about their effect on us.

**Smartphones nowadays come with a range of safety features and applications. They are not fundamentally dangerous but in fact quite the opposite and can be beneficial in many ways** One upside to smartphones is the range of safety features that come with them. - Location and GPS services on many smartphones means one can keep track of past movements. Whilst this may be viewed as an invasion of privacy, there have been a number of kidnapped individuals saved through GPS location services on smartphones. - ['Kidnapped' child tracked by mobile phone and Street View]( https://www.theregister.com/2009/01/09/tech_dragnet/) - [Georgia college student, 21, reveals how she used her iPhone's 'share my location' feature to escape the kidnapper who raped her at knife point.]( https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-5255619/Victim-reveals-iPhone-helped-escape-kidnapper.html) - On an iPhone. Pressing the side button 5 times will allow you to contact emergency services discreetly and quickly. - The same action. Will also allow you to view medical information, including emergency contact numbers. Such a tool could prove vital in a health emergency. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208076 - Smartphones can also help you stay on top of your health. The number of applications that allow you to track your steps, what you’re eating and your daily water intake. You can also monitor your period and set up daily reminders for taking medication. - Whilst this is not an exhaustive list it demonstrates that smartphones are not inherently dangerous. Rather they can be quite the opposite.