Is your cell phone causing more harm than good?

In this day and age cell phones are hardly for emergencies only anymore. You probably have one, your sister, brother, parents, grandparents, your 12 year old cousin probably even has one. Cell phones have advanced so much in the past decade that you can do virtually anything on it. You can update your facebook, post pictures online, purchase goods, use paypal to forward money to someone, I could even write this blog post on my phone if I wanted to. Because of the convenience that our cell phones provide us, many of us are on our phones virtually all the time. So, how bad is that for us? While there is no conclusive research that the radiation emissions from cell phones are harming us, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that constant exposure to radiation can, and will, do some kind of harm. The more you use your phone, the more your phone is emitting radiation. For example, a simple phone call on a cell phone emits about 1/10th of it's maximum radiation. The more work your phone has to do, the more radiation it emits. The same goes for the distance you are from a cell phone tower, the further away you are, the more work your phone has to do to maintain a signal, therefore more radiation is being emitted.

CNET has a list of the 20 highest-radiation cell phones, is yours on it?

         Cell phone    /  SAR level (digital)

1	Motorola V195s	1.6
2	Motorola Zine ZN5	1.59
2a	Motorola Rival	1.59
4	Kyocera Jax S1300	1.55
4a	Motorola VU204	1.55
6	RIM BlackBerry Curve 8330 (Sprint)	1.54
6a	RIM BlackBerry Curve 8330 (U.S. Cellular)	1.54
6b	RIM BlackBerry Curve 8330 (Verizon Wireless)	1.54
9	Nokia E71x	1.53
10	Pantech Matrix	1.52
11	LG Rumor 2	1.51
11a	RIM BlackBerry Bold	1.51
13	HTC SMT5800	1.49
14	Sony Ericsson W350a	1.48
15	T-Mobile Dash 3G	1.47
16	Samsung Instinct	1.46
16a	Samsung Spex SCH-R210	1.46
18	Kyocera X-tc	1.45
18a	Motorola i576	1.45
18b	Motorola Adventure V750	1.45

So, what can you do to minimize the exposure to radiation? Clearly the best thing you could do is to not use your cell phone as frequently, but for some people that's just not an option anymore. The second best option would be to get a headset so you are removing the radiation from your head area all together and try not to keep your cell phone on your person (such as in your pocket) if you don't have to.